/• 


METHODIST  FRATERNITY 
AND  FEDERATION. 


Methodist  Fraternity 
and  Federation 


BEING  SEVERAL  ADDRESSES 

AND  OTHER  PAPERS  ON 

THIS  GENERAL 

SUBJECT 


Bp 

BISHOP  E.  E.  HOSS 
ft 


NASHVILLE,  TENN. 
DALLAS,  TEX.;  RICHMOND,  VA. 

PUBLISHING  HOUSE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  SOUTH 

SMITH  &  LAMAR,  AGENTS 

1913 


PREFACE. 

IT  has  long  been  an  established  belief  with  me  that 
anybody  who  ventures  to  publish  a  new  book  should 
be  haled  into  court  and  required  to  show  cause.  I 
cannot  plead  any  very  good  reason  for  sending  forth 
this  little  volume.  A  few  intimate  friends  insisted  that 
I  should  do  it,  and  I  have  yielded  to  their  wishes.  The 
fact,  moreover,  that  I  have  been  honored  by  being 
made  fraternal  messenger  from  my  Church  to  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  Canadian  Methodist 
Church,  and  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church  of  Great 
Britain  may  be  some  excuse  for  putting  the  addresses 
which  I  delivered  before  the  representatives  of  those 
three  bodies  into  a  somewhat  permanent  form.  I  shall 
be  glad  if  enough  copies  are  sold  to  pay  the  printer. 

E.  E.  Hoss. 

NASHVILLE,  TENN.,  February  20,  1913. 

(v) 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

GREETINGS  TO  OUR  CANADIAN  KINSFOLK I 

SALUTATIONS  TO  OUR  TWIN  SISTER  OF  THE  NORTH 27 

A  MESSAGE  TO  THE  MOTHER  CHURCH  OF  METHODISM 65 

THE  RELIGIOUS  NEWSPAPER 93 

THE  NEW  DEMANDS  UPON  METHODIST  AUTHORSHIP 105 

AT  THE  GATHERING  OF  THE  TRIBES 115 

SOME  CONDITIONS  OF  ORGANIC  UNION 121 

(vii) 


I. 

GREETINGS  TO  OUR  CANADIAN  KINSFOLK. 


"Fellowship  with  all  we  hold,  that  hold  it  with  the  head." 
(Charles  Wesley.) 


GREETINGS  TO  OUR  CANADIAN  KINSFOLK. 

[Fraternal  address  delivered  before  the  General  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Church  in  Canada,  September  14,  1894.] 

Mr.  President  and  Brethren  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  the  Methodist  Church  in  Canada:  As  my  cre- 
dentials indicate,  I  am  deputed  by  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  through  its  College  of  Bishops,  to 
bring  you  a  message  of  brotherly  love.  To  discharge 
this  agreeable  task  is  my  only  business  here.  You  may 
take  it  for  granted  that  I  have  not  come  either  to  par- 
ticipate in  your  debates  or  to  thrust  any  impertinent 
advice  upon  you  in  regard  to  the  conduct  of  your  af- 
fairs. We  Southern  Methodists,  having  suffered  not  a 
little  from  the  mistaken  kindness  of  outside  friends 
who  thought  themselves  providentially  called  to  shape 
our  policies  for  us,  have  grown  a  trifle  timid  about 
offering  to  interfere  with  the  concerns  of  other  people. 
I  may  also  add  that  we  do  not  doubt  your  perfect  com- 
petency to  attend  to  your  own  business  in  your  own 
way. 

Allow  me,  then,  first  of  all,  in  the  name  of  the  1,400,- 
ooo  Methodists  whose  obedient  servant  I  am,  to  thank 
you  most  sincerely  for  the  honor  conferred  upon  us  by 
the  official  visit  of  your  distinguished  representative, 
Rev.  Dr.  Alexander  Sutherland,  to  the  twelfth  session 
of  our  General  Conference,  held  in  the  city  of  Mem- 
phis, Tenn.,  during  the  month  of  May  last  past.  It  is 
strictly  within  the  limits  of  the  truth  to  say  that  he 

(3) 


4  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

came  and  saw  and  conquered.  No  man  from  any 
quarter  has  ever  appeared  among  us  and  left  a  more 
pleasant  impression  behind  him  than  Dr.  Sutherland 
did.  His  stately  address — a  body  of  copious  and  or- 
derly thought  clothed  in  a  garb  of  fitting  words — will 
be  talked  about  for  a  generation ;  and  his  clear,  strong, 
and  tender  sermons — the  pure  gospel  set  to  perfect 
music — will  linger  in  our  hearts  like  the  memory  of 
sweet  bells  heard  in  the  distant  and  unclouded  days  of 
childhood. 

In  truth,  Mr.  President,  you  have  never  at  any  time 
sent  us  a  fraternal  delegate  who  by  his  attainments  and 
his  character  would  not  have  been  a  credit  to  any 
Church  in  Christendom.  Under  the  existing  circum- 
stances I  shall  not  be  guilty  of  the  grave  impropriety 
of  discussing  the  question  of  annexation.  Still  I  beg 
your  courteous  permission  to  say  that  we  are  perfectly 
ready  at  any  time  to  annex  Drs.  Sprague,  Briggs, 
Stone,  and  Sutherland.  If,  moreover,  you  should  feel 
that  you  cannot  part  company  with  these  capable  and 
honorable  brethren  without  some  sort  of  return,  then  be 
assured  that  we  have  at  least  a  few  able-bodied  itiner- 
ants on  our  side  of  the  line  whom  we  should  be  glad  to 
offer  you  in  exchange,  quid  pro  quo.  It  is  a  standing 
question  with  us,  Mr.  President,  whether  you  grow 
much  of  this  tall  timber  in  your  part  of  the  world. 

Your  first  messenger  to  us  has  lately  gone  hence  to 
the  high  places  of  the  universe.  It  is  easy  to  think  of 
him  as  at  home  in  those  lofty  spheres.  Let  us  pro- 
nounce his  name  gently.  Blessings  on  the  memory  of 
Dr.  George  Douglas,  who  blended  together  the  chivalry 
of  a  knight  and  the  spirituality  of  a  saint — Richard  the 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  5 

Lion-Hearted  and  Thomas  a  Kempis  both  in  one — and 
whose  eloquence  was  as  brilliant  as  the  sunsets  of  trop- 
ical climes  or  as  the  auroral  lights  that  flame  in  your 
northern  heavens !  To  have  known  one  such  man  is  to 
have  learned  how  to  think  better  of  our  humanity. 

I  speak  with  perfect  sobriety,  Mr.  President,  when  I 
say  that  we  are  greatly  delighted  to  hear  of  your  con- 
tinued and  increasing  prosperity.  The  history  of  Meth- 
odism in  Canada  stirs  our  hearts  like  the  blast  of  a 
trumpet.  A  nobler  race  of  ministers  never  lived  than 
those  who,  through  infinite  toil  and  self-denial,  laid  in 
these  vast  spaces  the  foundations  of  your  vigorous  and 
growing  Church.  From  all  the  indications,  the  infer- 
ence is  clear  that  they  transmitted  their  intellectual  and 
moral  qualities  to  their  successors  of  the  present  gen- 
eration. There  is  no  sign  hereabout  of  a  decrepit  or 
a  degenerate  Methodism.  From  sea  to  sea,  and  from 
the  Great  Lakes  northward  to  the  uttermost  line  of 
human  habitation,  you  are  flying  your  flag  and  pushing 
your  conquests.  All  this  is  good  tidings  to  our  ears. 
As  our  venerable  and  much-loved  Bishop  Keener  said 
on  a  memorable  occasion :  "When  victor)'  is  gained  at 
one  end  of  the  line,  it  will  be  heard  in  shout  and  paean 
at  the  other." 

Let  me  congratulate  you  on  the  unity  that  prevails 
among  you.  Unlike  the  river  of  Eden,  "which  was 
parted  thence  and  became  into  four  heads,"  you  rather 
resemble  our  Mississippi  and  our  Ohio,  which  gather 
each  into  a  resistless  current  all  the  affluents  that  rush 
down  from  the  encompassing  hills.  Herein  you  are  an 
edifying  spectacle,  if  not  "to  the  world  and  to  angels 
and  to  men,"  at  least  to  the  rest  of  the  Methodist 


6  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

Churches.  May  your  oneness  of  ecclesiastical  organi- 
zation be  more  and  more  the  outward  expression  and 
visible  token  of  the  fact  that  you  are  "endeavoring  to 
keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace"  ! 

Let  me  congratulate  you  on  your  steady  increase  in 
membership.  There  are  some  people  who  have  pon- 
dered the  story  of  Gideon  and  the  three  hundred,  and 
dwelt  upon  the  idea  that  the  Church  is  "a  little  flock," 
until  they  are  loud  in  the  assertion  that  numbers  are  a 
matter  of  no  importance.  Such  a  view  does  not  at  all 
harmonize  with  the  Wesleyan  interpretation  of  the  gos- 
pel. The  true  position  is  that  the  world  is  our  parish. 
"All"  and  "everyone"  are  great  terms  in  that  catholic 
theology  which  not  only  commends  itself  to  the  closet 
thinker,  but  bears  the  test  and  strain  of  actual  preach- 
ing in  the  open  daylight  of  the  world. 

The  address  of  our  bishops  for  1894  correctly  and 
tersely  says : 

The  numerical  increase  of  the  Church  is  a  most  interesting 
and  momentous  item.  It  measures  more  than  any  other  figures 
can  both  the  fruits  of  our  labors  and  the  forces  now  at  com- 
mand to  carry  forward  the  work.  What  can  equal  the  interest 
and  significance  of  numbers  when  they  are  the  numbers  of 
saved  souls?  The  increase  is  God's  blessing  in  response  to 
the  longings,  prayers,  and  toils  of  his  servants.  Hunger  for 
converts  cannot  be  satisfied  while  any  are  out  of  Christ.  If 
our  accessions  were  the  spoiling  of  other  folds,  there  might  be 
small  cause  for  rejoicing;  but  we  raise  the  shout  of  praise  and 
triumph  over  those  whom  God  has  delivered  from  the  power 
of  darkness  and  translated  into  the  kingdom  of  his  dear  Son. 

Let  me  congratulate  you  on  the  rising  tide  of  mis- 
sionary enthusiasm  which  enables  you  to  spend  one 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  7 

dollar  per  member  every  year  for  the  spread  of  the  gos- 
pel in  destitute  and  heathen  parts.  The  chief  function 
of  the  Church  is  not  to  coddle  itself,  but  to  evangelize 
the  world.  Any  ecclesiastical  body  that  forgets  this 
truth  deserves  to  die  and  be  buried  without  epitaph  or 
tombstone  in  the  nearest  potter's  field.  The  notion 
that  we  should  simply  be  solicitous  to  hold  our  own  and 
let  the  rest  of  our  fellow  men  take  care  of  themselves 
is  the  first  article  in  the  devil's  creed.  We  discredit 
our  Lord  and  dishonor  our  own  professions  by  listening 
to  it  for  a  single  moment. 

Let  me  congratulate  you  on  the  stability  of  your  edu- 
cational institutions,  and  on  the  great  army  of  your 
young  men  and  women  that  are  seeking  the  advantages 
of  highest  culture  under  Christian  auspices;  on  the 
assured  success  of  your  Publishing  House,  which  with 
each  new  quadrennium  widens  the  scope  of  its  influ- 
ence and  sends  out  an  increasing  volume  of  religious 
literature;  on  your  more  than  two  thousand  faithful 
ministers  who  go  everywhere  preaching  the  Word ;  and, 
most  of  all,  on  the  general  fact  that  as  a  Church  you 
still  stand  fast  in  the  faith  of  the  fathers,  cherishing  the 
firm  conviction  that  you  have  in  trust  a  bona  fide  offer 
of  salvation  for  every  man — a  salvation  suspended  on 
the  solitary  condition  of  obedient  faith  in  the  finished 
work  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  consciously  realized  as 
a  transfiguring  experience  through  the  operation  of  the 
sanctifying  and  witnessing  Spirit,  and  attesting  itself 
as  a  divine  reality  before  all  men  by  an  upright  walk 
and  a  godly  conversation. 

Mr.  President,  you  have  learned  from  the  lips  of  my 
esteemed  brethren  who  have  been  here  in  advance  of 


8  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

me — Bishops  McTyeire  and  Galloway,  and  Drs.  Sar- 
gent, Kelley,  and  Sledd — that  Methodism  in  the  South- 
ern States  of  the  American  Union  is  a  very  vigorous 
and  aggressive  type  of  Christianity.  It  has  been  so 
from  the  beginning.  Whether  this  is  to  be  explained  as 
the  result  of  a  natural  affinity  between  fervent  doctrines 
and  fervent  temperaments,  I  shall  not  stop  to  consider. 
The  fact  is  matter  of  record  and  beyond  dispute. 

Of  course  you  are  aware  that  the  pleasant  story 
about  the  historical  priority  of  good  Philip  Embury  and 
his  John  Street  Chapel,  although  it  was  long  regarded 
as  of  canonical  authority,  is  only  a  piece  of  consecrated 
fiction.  The  real  origin  of  American  Methodism  is  to 
be  looked  for  under  the  ministry  of  Robert  Straw- 
bridge,  that  fiery  Irishman  who  began  to  hold  forth  the 
gospel  to  his  neighbors  in  the  State  of  Maryland  as 
early  as  1760.  Not  only  is  it  true  that  Strawbridge  was 
first  in  point  of  time,  but  it  is  also  true  that  he  was  first 
in  point  of  zeal,  ability,  and  success.  The  Annual  Con- 
ferences began  in  1773.  At  the  session  of  that  year, 
held  in  Philadelphia,  1,160  members  were  reported,  as 
follows:  Virginia,  100;  New  Jersey,  200;  Philadelphia, 
180 ;  New  York,  180 ;  Maryland,  500.  Our  Bishop  Mc- 
Tyeire, who  dearly  loved  a  hard-headed  and  self-willed 
man — at  a  convenient  distance  from  his  own  juris- 
diction— makes  this  remark  in  his  "History  of  Meth- 
odism": "Indeed,  about  half  the  business  done  at  the 
Philadelphia  Conference,  besides  stationing  the  ten 
preachers,  was  in  restraining  the  two  grand  and  impet- 
uous men  (Strawbridge  and  Williams)  by  whom  more 
than  half  the  work  up  to  date  had  been  performed." 
And  he  further  adds :  "If  any  notable  preacher  or  lay- 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  9 

man  has  developed  in  the  first  generation  from  what  it 
has  become  popular  to  call  'the  cradle  of  American 
Methodism/  history  fails  to  record  the  name.  But  sev- 
eral preachers  were  raised  up  by  Strawbridge  in  his 
travels  in  Baltimore  and  Harford  Counties,  and  many 
laymen  whose  families  have  been  identified  with  the 
whole  subsequent  progress  of  Methodism  in  their  re- 
spective localities,  if  not  in  the  nation  generally." 

It  may  surprise  some  of  you  to  learn  that  in  the  fif- 
teen Southern  States  there  are  to-day  3,000,00x5  Meth- 
odists— a  larger  number,  that  is  to  say,  than  are  found 
in  the  thirty-three  Northern  and  Western  States  and 
territories.  These  do  not  all  belong  to  us.  About 
1,000,000  of  them  are  colored  Methodists,  and  perhaps 
500,000  are  connected  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
and  Methodist  Protestant  Churches. 

Our  own  existence  as  a  separate  Church  dates  back 
to  1844-46.  Of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  disruption 
of  the  original  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  it  would 
not  be  seemly  for  me  to  speak  here,  though  there  is  no 
part  of  the  record  which  we  are  not  willing,  under 
proper  circumstances,  to  blazon  to  the  world.  From  my 
heart  of  hearts  I  thank  God  that  the  unchristian  aliena- 
tions growing  out  of  the  epochal  disturbances  of  half 
a  century  ago  are  rapidly  vanishing  away.  There  is  no 
reason  under  heaven  why  they  should  any  longer  con- 
tinue to  exist.  The  two  Methodisms  ought  to  have  no 
rivalry  except  as  to  which  shall  display  the  greater  zeal 
in  extending  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Whoever  contrib- 
utes, either  by  word  or  by  deed,  to  the  revival  of  dead 
issues,  or  to  the  continued  life  of  such  evil  passions  as 
itill  maintain  a  lingering  and  forbidden  existence,  is 


io  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

either  blind  or  bad — and  there  are  times  when  blindness 
is  badness. 

We  began  in  1846  with  about  500,000  members. 
When  the  Civil  War  came,  in  1861,  we  had  increased 
to  over  700,000,  of  whom  207,000  were  persons  of 
African  descent — a  larger  body  of  converted  heathen 
than  could  then  be  found  in  all  the  mission  stations  of 
the  world.  In  many  communities  there  was  a  great 
preponderance  of  colored  over  white  members.  For 
example,  Trinity  Church,  Charleston,  S.  C,  reported 
in  1863  only  385  white  members  and  probationers 
against  700  colored;  and  Bethel  Church,  in  the  same 
city,  reported  383  white  members  against  1,492  col- 
ored. These  dusky  sons  of  Africa  were  brought  from 
darkness  to  light  partly  by  the  teaching  and  exam- 
ple of  such  Christian  masters  as  Nathanael  Gilbert 
of  Antigua,  two  of  whose  servants  were  baptized  by 
John  Wesley  at  Wandsworth,  England,  in  1760,  and 
who  himself  became  a  local  preacher  eleven  years  be- 
fore the  first  missionaries  were  appointed  to  the  island 
of  his  residence,  and  died  leaving  a  well-organized 
society  of  two  hundred  members  behind  him — partly, 
I  say,  by  such  as  he,  and  partly  by  the  unselfish  and 
persistent  labors  of  the  godly  itinerants  who  went  from 
year  to  year  to  the  lowly  cabins  on  the  cotton  and  rice 
plantations  with  the  message  of  life.  During  the  fif- 
teen years  between  1845  and  1860  we  spent  $1,875,000 
in  the  prosecution  of  this  form  of  religious  activity.  In 
the  States  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  alone  we  had 
at  the  latter  date  sixty  picked  and  capable  men — none 
other  were  deemed  fit — whose  sole  occupation  it  was  to 
minister  to  the  religious  wants  of  the  colored  people. 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  II 

But  the  close  of  the  war  left  us  prostrate.  No  words 
of  mine  can  describe  the  wide  desolation  that  stretched 
from  the  Ohio  to  the  Gulf,  and  from  the  Potomac  to 
the  Rio  Grande.  It  was  enough  to  take  the  heart  out 
of  any  people,  and  it  would  have  taken  the  heart  out  of 
us  if  we  had  not  had  a  thousand  years  of  English  his- 
tory in  our  blood.  The  Churches,  of  course,  shared  in 
the  general  depression.  The  first  census  after  the  ces- 
sation of  avowed  hostilities  showed  that  we  had  lost 
more  than  forty  per  cent  of  our  numerical  strength; 
and  this  was  not  so  bad  as  the  social  and  religious 
demoralization  that  always  follows  in  the  wake  of  war. 
One  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  of  our  colored  mem- 
bers left  us  before  a  General  Conference  could  be  con- 
vened, many  of  them  led  away  by  delusive  promises 
that  have  not  yet  been  fulfilled.  To  save  the  rest,  and 
not,  as  has  been  cruelly  charged,  to  get  rid  of  an  un- 
pleasant responsibility,  we  set  them  up  into  a  separate 
Church ;  and  though  then  in  the  depths  of  poverty,  we 
gave  them  property  to  begin  with  worth  more  than 
$250,000. 

It  was  confidently  predicted  in  some  quarters  that 
we  should  never  be  able  to  resume  business  on  our  own 
account.  Clearly  the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought. 
Prophecy  is  safer  after  the  event.  In  less  than  six 
months  from  the  close  of  the  war  the  word  went  down 
the  line  to  close  up  the  ranks,  and  it  met  with  an  in- 
stant response.  In  1866  the  General  Conference  came 
together  at  New  Orleans.  It  was  by  all  odds  the  most 
radical  Methodist  legislature  that  ever  assembled  in 
any  land.  Things  with  us  were  in  so  bad  a  condition 
that  nothing  could  make  them  any  worse.  Hence  the 


12  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

willingness  to  try  divers  and  sundry  experiments,  all, 
however,  within  the  line  of  reason.  The  progress  of 
a  generation  was  accomplished  inside  of  four  weeks. 
The  pastoral  term  was  extended  from  two  to  four 
years ;  the  hard  and  fast  time  limit  for  probation  was 
abolished,  but  the  probationary*  principle  was  retained. 
The  class  meeting  test  of  membership  was  wiped  out, 
yet  class  meetings  were  still  recommended  as  an  in- 
valuable means  of  grace.  Church  Conferences  and 
District  Conferences  were  introduced.  Four  new 
bishops — William  M.  Wightman,  David  S.  Doggett, 
Enoch  M.  Marvin,  and  Holland  N.  McTyeire,  each 
one  in  every  sense  a  full-grown  man — were  elected. 
More  important,  however,  than  all  these  things  was  the 
adoption  of  a  plan  of  lay  delegation,  not  a  tentative 
makeshift,  but  the  genuine  article — equal  representa- 
tion in  the  General  Conference  and  effective  represen- 
tation in  the  Annual  Conferences  and  other  administra- 
tive bodies  of  the  Church. 

From  that  date  we  have  taken  no  backward  step. 
Instead  of  447,000  members,  which  we  then  enrolled, 
we  had  grown  at  the  close  of  1893  to  1,345,210,  an 
increase  during  the  preceding  quadrennium  of  178,060. 
As  the  present  year  has  been  notable  for  its  conversions 
and  accessions,  the  probabilities  are  that  we  now  num- 
ber quite  1,400,000,  embraced  in  forty-eight  Annual 
Conferences.  Two  of  the  strongest  of  these  Confer- 
ences are  the  North  and  South  Georgia,  covering  the 
State  in  which  John  Wesley  labored  during  his  stay  in 
America,  and  having  respectively  89,995  and  57,949 
communicants.  You  will  be  glad  to  know  that  in  that 
goodly  commonwealth,  the  last  of  the  thirteen  original 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  13 

colonies,  it  is  considered  perfectly  "good  form"  to  be  a 
Methodist. 

Our  people  belong  to  every  class  and  rank  in  society. 
"The  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together;  the  Lord  is  the 
Maker  of  them  all."  But  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  worship  at  our  altars  are  plain  folk  who  earn 
their  daily  bread  by  their  daily  toil.  May  it  ever  be  so ! 
If  we  should  forget  the  rock  whence  we  were  hewn  and 
the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  we  were  digged,  God  would 
have  no  further  use  for  us.  Our  mission  is  to  the 
masses.  Methodism  is  preeminently  the  people's 
Church.  All  this  may  be  said  without  in  the  least  in- 
veighing against  honest  wealth  or  encouraging  that 
seductive  nonsense  which,  mixing  some  very  old  truths 
with  some  very  old  errors,  takes  to  itself  the  title  of 
Christian  Socialism  and  seeks  to  get  a  vehicle  of  utter- 
ance through  the  evangelical  pulpits  of  to-day. 

The  South  has  few  large  cities.  Besides  Baltimore, 
St.  Louis,  Louisville,  and  New  Orleans,  all  of  which, 
except  the  last,  are  on  the  border,  there  are  none 
that  go  beyond  100,000.  In  New  Orleans  it  took  a 
long,  hard,  and  costly  effort  to  get  the  substantial  foot- 
ing which  we  now  occupy.  It  is  not  necessary  to  tell 
you  what  the  difficulties  are  in  establishing  Methodism 
in  a  community  that  is  dominated  by  French  Cathol- 
icism, and  that  includes  within  its  borders  as  cosmo- 
politan a  population  as  can  be  found  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  In  St.  Louis  and  Louisville  we  have  lately 
taken  on  fresh  life  and  are  making  most  satisfactory 
progress.  Baltimore  is  strongly  occupied  by  our  sister 
Church,  though  we  have  there  a  number  of  good  con- 
gregations and  nearly  3,000  members. 


14  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

In  almost  all  the  Southern  towns  of  from  10,000 
inhabitants  up  we  are  well  to  the  front.  In  such  cities 
as  Norfolk,  Atlanta,  and  Nashville,  that  range  from 
50,000  to  80,000,  you  can  scarcely  throw  a  stone  into 
any  crowd  without  hitting  a  Methodist.  We  have  seen 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  our  Church  is  less  adapted 
to  urban  than  to  rural  communities.  Still  the  fact  ex- 
ists that  the  main  body  of  our  membership  is  found  in 
the  country  circuits,  a  great  many  of  which  furnish 
the  ideal  conditions  for  pleasant  and  successful  pastoral 
labor.  There  is  no  picture  that  is  sweeter  than  that  of 
a  neat  country  church,  embowered  in  a  grove  of  oaks 
and  maples,  with  a  hundred  horses  hitched  all  around 
it,  and  a  congregation  of  devout  and  earnest  worshipers 
within.  One  thing  in  particular  is  true  among  us :  our 
supply  of  ministers  comes  chiefly  from  the  country. 
Towns  and  cities  do  not  breed  many  great  preachers. 

We  have  5,487  traveling  and  6,515  local  preachers; 
13,363  Sunday  schools,  with  95,676  teachers  and  765,- 
286  scholars;  13,185  churches,  worth  $20,567,757; 
3,163  parsonages,  worth  $3,675,306;  179  schools  and 
colleges,  with  897  teachers  and  16,620  scholars ;  prop- 
erty valued  at  $4,485,042,  and  endowments  aggregating 
$1,538,000.  Last  year  we  raised  for  missions,  foreign 
and  domestic,  $388,566,  besides  the  $71,199  contributed 
and  expended  under  the  management  of  the  Woman's 
Missionary  Society.  We  have  prosperous  missions  in 
China,  Japan,  Mexico,  Brazil,  and  the  Indian  Territory. 
The  number  of  missionaries,  male  and  female,  exclusive 
of  those  in  the  Indian  Territory,  is  100,  and  the  number 
of  members  about  8,000.  The  Indian  Mission  Confer- 
ence has  103  traveling  and  176  local  preachers,  and 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  15 

10,037  white  and  3,225  Indian  members.  Our  Church 
Extension  Society  has  an  average  annual  income  of 
$65,000  and  a  growing  permanent  loan  fund  of  about 
$100,000.  Our  Publishing  House  is  worth,  including 
its  plant  and  operating  capital,  not  less  than  $650,000 
and  is  without  any  incumbrance.  Within  the  quadren- 
nium  just  closed,  it  gave  $70,000  of  its  profits  to  the 
superannuated  preachers.  The  Christian  Advocate, 
the  general  organ  of  the  Church,  has  an  average  circu- 
lation of  27,000  copies.  There  are  twelve  or  fifteen 
other  Church  papers,  many  of  which  are  ably  edited 
and  carry  subscription  lists  of  from  5,000  to  20,000. 
The  Quarterly  Reiiew  is  a  scholarly  and  able  period- 
ical. Up  to  this  date  it  has  not  quite  paid  its  way,  but 
it  is  expected  that  its  revenues  will  hereafter  equal  its 
expenses.  Of  the  various  Sunday  school  periodicals, 
largely  over  a  million  copies  are  issued.  The  General 
Conference,  just  closed,  provided  a  complete  organiza- 
tion for  the  Epworth  League,  ordered  the  publication 
of  the  Epu'orth  Era,  and  elected  one  of  our  most  bril- 
liant men  Secretary  and  Editor. 

It  is  a  matter  for  which  we  feel  profoundly  grateful 
to  Almighty  God  that  a  highly  esteemed  citizen  of  St. 
Louis,  the  late  Mr.  Robert  A.  Barnes,  not  himself  a 
Methodist,  but  the  son  of  a  Methodist  mother,  made  a 
bequest  in  his  will,  which  was  probated  about  two  years 
ago,  of  $1,400,000  to  be  used  in  erecting  and  main- 
taining a  great  free  hospital  under  the  control  of  our 
Church.  The  conviction  more  and  more  spreads  itself 
among  us  that  in  all  matters  of  practical  beneficence 
we  must  bestir  ourselves  beyond  anything  that  we  have 
yet  done. 


16  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

If  you  ask  whether  in  achieving  the  results  that  I 
have  thus  sought  to  enumerate  we  have  used  any  pe- 
culiar methods,  I  answer  that  we  have  not.  We  are 
simply  Methodists,  holding  and  preaching  every  Wes- 
leyan  doctrine  from  preventing  grace  to  perfect  love, 
and  offering  no  apology  to  any  man  or  body  of  men 
for  the  fact  that  we  are  in  the  world. 

Our  polity,  it  is  true,  differs  somewhat  from  yours, 
and  is  neither  the  better  nor  the  worse  for  that  fact. 
We  are  Episcopal  Methodists,  and  spell  General  Super- 
intendent with  a  rather  large  B.  It  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  our  bishops  have  very  great  powers — powers  that 
could  not  be  safely  trusted  for  a  single  day  except  to 
wise  and  godly  men,  nor  without  due  restraints  to  any 
men.  Though  without  voice  or  vote  in  making  our 
laws,  they  are  invested  with  a  limited  veto  as  regards 
constitutional  questions.  In  addition  to  this,  the.  deci- 
sion of  a  bishop  on  a  point  of  law  raised  in  a  case 
actually  pending  becomes,  after  it  has  been  approved 
by  the  College  of  Bishops  and  duly  published,  an  au- 
thoritative construction  of  law. 

Theoretically,  moreover,  the  appointments  of  all  the 
preachers  are  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops  ;  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  most  of  them  are  settled  by  the  concurrent 
judgment  of  the  presiding  elders.  It  is  rumored  that 
once  in  a  while  a  wealthy  layman  or  a  board  of  Church 
officials  undertakes  to  say  who  shall  come  to  this  place 
or  go  to  that.  But  our  present  senior  bishop  declares 
that  in  twenty-five  years  he  has  known  no  such  in- 
stance. For  the  most  part,  at  least,  preachers  and 
people  live  faithfully  up  to  their  compact  with  one  an- 
other and  leave  the  whole  question  of  the  appointments 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  17 

to  the  impartial  mediation  of  the  bishops  and  their 
recognized  advisers. 

English  and  Canadian  Methodists  are  sometimes 
puzzled,  and  naturally  so,  to  know  why  it  is  that  in  a 
republican  country  authority  so  unusual  is  put  into  the 
hands  of  a  small  class  of  men.  If  I  offer  an  explana- 
tion, you  will  not  suppose  for  one  moment  that  I  am 
making  an  indecorous  boast  or  suggesting  an  invidious 
comparison.  What  suits  our  conditions  very  well  might 
not  suit  you  at  all.  Suffer  me,  then,  with  this  disclaim- 
er in  mind,  to  say  a  words  ad  rem. 

1.  The  itinerancy  needs  a  strong  executive.    Looked 
at  from  a  merely  human  standpoint,  it  ought  in  any 
case  to  break  down.    That  it  has  lasted  for  more  than 
one  hundred  years  is  just  cause  for  wonder.    To  make 
it  most  effective  it  must  be  vigorously  administered. 
We  do  not  fear  to  give  a  large  grant  of  power  to  our 
chief  pastors,  provided  we  hedge  it  about  with  restric- 
tions and  limitations  that  render  the  abuse  of  it  a  vir- 
tual impossibility. 

2.  Fortunately  for  us,  the  men  whom  we  have  here- 
tofore chosen  to  lead  and  guide  our  hosts  have  been, 
without  exception,  both  capable  and  upright  in  their 
high  office.     If  the  mere  suspicion  of  their  incompe- 
tency  and  unfaithfulness  should  get  a  general  lodgment 
in  the  mind  of  the  Giurch,  the  system  could  not  sur- 
vive for  a  decade.     We  are  profoundly  deferential  to 
a  government  of  law,  but  would  not  tolerate  for  one 
day  the  assumption  and  exercise  of  personal  preroga- 
tives. 

3.  Our  bishops  are  the  work  of  our  own  hands. 
They  are  not  made  for  us ;  we  make  them  for  our- 

2 


l8  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

selves.  We  do  not  claim  for  them  the  warrant  of  ex- 
press divine  authorization.  The  cry  of  "No  bishop, 
no  Church"  is  a  bigot's  cry.  In  common  with  all 
Methodists,  while  holding  fast  to  the  rich  and  fruitful 
conception  of  the  historical  continuity  of  the  Christian 
Church,  we  utterly  scout  and  repudiate  the  thin  and 
vaporous  conceit  of  tactual  succession.  Even  if  it 
could  be  proved  that  there  is  such  a  succession — as  it 
cannot  be — we  frankly  avow  that  we  are  not  in  it, 
and  we  are  glad  of  it.  When  the  next  business  revival 
comes,  we  ought,  in  all  justice,  to  take  up  a  general 
collection  for  the  purpose  of  building  a  monument  to 
the  memory  of  that  good  bishop  of  London  who  re- 
fused to  ordain  Mr.  Wesley's  preachers  for  North 
America.  If  he  had  yielded  to  the  earnest  solicitations 
of  our  pious  founder,  he  would  have  inoculated  us  with 
the  successional  virus — a  catastrophe  the  bare  contem- 
plation of  which  is  enough  to  make  a  good  Methodist 
shudder. 

I  repeat  it,  Mr.  President,  that  our  bishops  do  not 
look  for  their  title  deeds  in  the  confused  and  musty 
records  of  a  medieval  ecclesiasticism.  In  the  exercise 
of  our  God-given  rights  as  Christian  men  we  elect 
them,  ordain  them,  prescribe  their  functions,  and  fix 
legal  limitations  to  their  authority.  We  are  glad  that 
the  first  in  the  line  was  set  apart  by  John  Wesley,  who 
stood  in  a  unique  providential  relation  to  the  great 
revival  movement  out  of  which  our  Church  had  its 
birth.  But  we  do  not  admit  that  the  validity  of  our 
episcopacy  or  of  our  other  ministerial  orders  rests 
upon  the  action  of  that  great  man.  A  wise  conserva- 
.tism  dictated  the  propriety  of  looking  to  him  for 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.  19 

counsel  and  direction  at  a  critical  moment  in  our  his- 
tory ;  yet  in  the  last  anah  sis  of  the  principles  involved 
we  had  a  perfect  right  to  do  for  ourselves  what  he  did 
for  us. 

Before  concluding  this  address,  which  is  already 
growing  too  long,  I  must  add  that  it  would  be  a  serious 
mistake  to  suppose  that  everything  is  well  with  us. 
Southern  Methodism  may  claim  to  be  a  true  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ,  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  far  from 
being  such  a  Church  as  it  ought  to  be.  There  are  many 
goats  in  the  flock  of  sheep,  "whose  beards  are  sprouting 
down  toward  hell  against  God's  dreadful,  separating 
judgment  day."  We  confess  the  truth  with  unfeigned 
sorrow.  Nor  do  we  dare  affirm  that  the  general  aver- 
age of  religious  life  among  us  is  up  to  the  proper  level. 
Worldliness  creeps  in  at  a  thousand  points.  Subtle, 
elusive,  persistent,  it  defies  even  the  most  stringent 
statutes  that  are  framed  to  suppress  it,  and  slips  like 
an  invisible  spirit  through  the  finest  meshes  of  pro- 
hibitory legislation.  The  mad  rush  for  wealth  has 
drowned  many  of  our  people  in  destruction  and  perdi- 
tion, and  the  fatal  allurement  of  ungodly  pleasures  has 
drawn  many  others  away  from  the  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ.  Some  whose  parents  or  grandparents  were 
fished  up  out  of  the  depths  of  social  obscurity  through 
the  faithful  agency  of  humble  circuit  riders  have  be- 
come so  ambitious  to  move  and  shine  in  what  they 
are  pleased  to  call  "the  upper  circles  of  society"  that 
they  are  willing  to  forget  their  fealty  to  Jesus  Christ 
and  their  obligations  to  Methodism.  In  some  places, 
not  many,  the  conditions  are  such  from  all  these  causes 
as  to  force  the  true  pastor  to  cry  out :  "O  that  my  head 


20  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

were  waters,  and  mine  eyes  a  fountain  of  tears,  that  I 
might  weep  day  and  night  for  the  slain  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people !"  We  solicit  an  interest  in  your  prayers 
that  we  may  become  indeed  a  pure  Church,  "without 
spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing." 

Up  to  this  time  we  have  suffered  little  disturbance 
from  "the  higher  criticism."  But,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
we  cannot  hope  that  this  exemption  will  be  permanent. 
The  battle  is  on  and  must  be  fought  to  a  finish.  In 
due  time  even  the  most  conservative  body  feels  the 
force  of  whatever  disputes  and  debates  are  going  on 
in  the  world.  Whether  a  people  bred  from  infancy  to 
believe  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God  can  make  the 
transition  to  the  position  that  the  Bible  contains  the 
word  of  God  without  suffering  loss  and  damage,  is  a 
question  that  has  not  yet  been  settled.  Only  the  actual 
issue  can  enable  us  to  give  a  satisfactory  answer.  In 
any  event  we  shall  not  be  guilty  of  the  folly  of  taking 
a  stand  against  the  results  of  sound  and  reverent  schol- 
arship. Whatever  can  be  proved  true,  we  are  bound 
to  accept;  whatever  can  be  shown  to  be  false,  we  are 
equally  bound  to  reject.  But  we  shall  not  be  in  a 
hurry  to  shift  our  ground.  It  will  be  ample  time  to  do 
that  when  the  men  who  are  most  competent  to  collate, 
weigh,  and  sift  the  facts  shall  have  pronounced  a  final 
judgment.  In  the  meantime  our  attitude  is  not  one  of 
stupid  indifference  as  to  the  result,  but  rather  one  of 
the  profoundest  concern.  With  whatever  intelligence 
we  can  command  we  shall  follow  the  course  of  the 
struggle.  The  opinion  is  general  among  us  that  the 
discussion  of  the  higher  criticism  from  the  pulpit,  in- 
volving as  it  does  the  statement  of  many  facts  and 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.          21 

principles  which  even  the  most  cultivated  of  our  con- 
gregations are  scarcely  prepared  to  comprehend,  is  an 
admirable  way  of  producing  a  generation  of  skeptics. 
The  pulpit  should  give  itself  to  the  proclamation  of 
assured  truths,  and  not  to  the  dissemination  of  doubtful 
theories.  We  feel  certain  that  the  final  result  of  the 
conflict,  through  whatever  stages  it  may  pass,  will  be  a 
firmer  and  purer  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  Saviour  of  the  world. 

We  are  affected  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  yet  prob- 
ably less  than  the  rest,  by  the  contentions  that  are 
springing  up  between  capital  and  labor.  As  our  civili- 
zation grows  older  and  more  complex,  the  natural  tend- 
ency is  toward  the  separation  of  society  into  classes. 
The  old,  frank,  and  brotherly  democracy  which  was 
once  our  boast  seems  to  be  in  danger  of  passing  away. 
We  are  threatened  on  the  one  hand  with  an  aristocracy 
whose  sole  title  to  recognition  is  found,  not  in  noble 
blood,  nor  in  eminent  services  to  the  commonwealth, 
nor  in  wide  learning,  nor  in  high  character,  but  simply 
in  vulgar  and  shoddyish  wealth ;  and  on  the  other  hand 
with  a  rabble  of  serfs,  tramps,  and  paupers  who  have 
lost  all  hope  and  cherish  no  ambition  except  to  be  fed 
out  of  the  public  crib.  I  regret  to  be  compelled  to  ad- 
mit that,  in  view  of  such  conditions,  a  number  of  our 
preachers  have  become  amateur  political  economists 
and,  without  adequate  knowledge  of  that  intricate  sci- 
ence, are  seeking  to  control  public  opinion  by  dogmatic 
deliverances  from  the  pulpit.  On  this  subject,  as  on 
others,  it  remains  true  that  no  man  knows  any  more 
than  he  has  learned,  and  that  not  even  the  sanctity  of 
the  ministry  can  invest  crude  and  foolish  notions  with 


22  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

superior  right  to  be  heard.  After  all,  while  we  ought 
to  be  deeply  interested  in  whatever  affects  the  social 
and  industrial  welfare  of  the  whole  people,  it  is  still 
true  that  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  is  somewhat  more 
than  a  reform  club,  and  that  the  preaching  of  an  un- 
earthly gospel  is  the  best  remedy  for  all  earthly  ills. 

The  whisky  traffic  is  one  of  the  chief  curses  of  our 
times.  With  us,  as  with  you,  it  is  organized,  lawless, 
and  defiant.  One  of  our  most  eminent  men  has  said: 
"We  must  put  it  down  or  it  will  put  us  down."  The 
Discipline  of  our  Church  prohibits  our  members  abso- 
lutely and  on  pain  of  expulsion  from  engaging  in  the 
nefarious  business,  and  also  classifies  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits  as  a  beverage  under  the  head  of  immorality. 
Our  preachers  almost  to  a  man  are  teetotalers.  About 
one-half  of  our  territory  is  under  some  form  of  prohi- 
bition. In  the  State  of  Mississippi,  for  example,  seven- 
ty counties  out  of  seventy-six  have  closed  the  saloons. 
In  Georgia  over  ninety  counties  out  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty  have  done  the  same.  In  Tennessee  and  other 
States  we  are  running  in  a  like  direction.  The  one 
thing  that  delays  our  final  victory  over  the  liquor  power 
is  the  presence  of  so  large  a  mass  of  ignorant  and  pur- 
chasable voters.  If  they  were  out  of  the  way,  the  prob- 
lem would  become  easy  of  solution. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  ills  that  beset  us  in 
common  with  the  Churches  of  Jesus  Christ  throughout 
the  world,  there  are  others  that  belong  to  us  alone. 
The  Civil  War  raised  nearly  as  many  questions  as  it 
settled.  Chief  among  these  is  the  relation  between  two 
races  living  side  by  side,  speaking  the  same  language, 
professing  the  same  religion,  enjoying  exactly  the  same 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.          23 

civil  rights,  and  yet  as  socially  distinct  as  if  they  were 
in  different  worlds.  I  know  that  it  is  impossible  in  the 
brief  space  at  my  command  to  say  anything  on  this 
subject  that  will  not  need  to  be  taken  with  qualification. 
The  more  I  ponder  the  matter,  the  less  I  am  disposed 
to  dogmatize  about  it.  The  only  persons  I  have  ever 
met  who  thought  themselves  perfectly  competent  to  set- 
tle it  offhand  were  ignoramuses  who  had  given  it  no 
serious  attention. 

Those  of  you  who  have  sought  to  read  the  larger 
lessons  of  history  will  not  suppose  for  one  moment  that 
a  social  and  political  upheaval,  the  vastest  in  modern 
times,  could  take  place  without  much  strife,  disorder, 
and  bloodshed.  When  the  tremendous  changes  that 
have  been  wrought  in  the  fabric  of  our  institutions  are 
considered,  the  wonder  is  not  that  they  have  been  ac- 
companied with  so  much  violence,  but  with  so  little. 

As  a  Southern  man  I  bow  my  head  and  confess  with 
shame  that  we  have  been  disgraced  these  twenty  years 
past  by  many  crimes.  Nor  do  I  speak  one  thing  here 
and  another  at  home.  As  much  as  any  man  on  the 
continent,  and  as  vigorously,  I  have  denounced  all 
forms  of  illegal  and  violent  dealing  with  the  colored 
people.  I  also  make  bold  to  affirm  that  the  outrages  to 
which  I  have  alluded  do  not  in  any  sense  meet  with  the 
approbation  of  the  Christian  people  of  the  Southern 
States.  We  are  no  more  responsible  for  them  than 
British  Christians  are  for  the  opium  trade  in  China  or, 
the  slaughtering  of  the  Matabeles  by  the  thousand  in 
South  Africa. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  the  7,000,000  negroes  are  so  many 
angels  in  ebony  who  are  persecuted  by  their  white 


24  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

neighbors  for  their  superior  virtues.  The  race  is  not 
without  noble  and  amiable  traits.  Individual  members 
of  it  reach  the  altitudes  of  character.  To  speak  an  un- 
kind or  coarse  word  of  it  would  be  a  thing  I  should  not 
know  how  to  do.  On  the  whole  it  is  making  progress, 
slowly  yet  surely.  But  no  sensible  man  supposes  that 
it  will  leap  at  once  to  the  front  rank  of  civilization  or 
fly  to  those  summits  of  power  which  English-speaking 
people  have  reached  by  the  most  gradual  steps  through 
nearly  two  millenniums  of  progress.  And  in  the  vast 
host  there  are  scores  of  thousands  in  whose  breasts  the 
passions  of  tropical  savagery  still  rage. 

There  are  certain  large  facts  which  I  beg  you  to 
contemplate  as  showing,  in  spite  of  indications  which 
seem  to  you  to  look  in  another  direction,  the  sincere 
friendliness  of  the  Southern  people  toward  their  broth- 
ers in  black.  First,  the  fifteen  Southern  States' have 
taxed  themselves  since  the  war  in  the  sum  of  $50,000,- 
ooo  to  educate  the  children  of  their  former  slaves.  If 
this  fact  has  any  parallel  in  human  history,  bring  it 
out.  Secondly,  the  colored  people  have  themselves 
accumulated  property  worth  £50,000,000  of  English 
money.  Would  that  have  been  possible  in  a  country 
where  the  rights  of  person  and  property  were  not  re- 
spected ? 

But  I  must  close.  Let  me  say,  in  conclusion,  that  we 
look  hopefully  to  the  future.  We  are  not  whining  pes- 
simists nor  atrabilious  saints.  The  world,  it  seems  to 
us,  is  getting  better  and  not  worse,  is  swinging  for- 
ward into  the  light  and  not  receding  into  the  darkness. 
This  is  the  best  century  that  it  has  ever  seen,  and  the 
last  quarter  of  it  is  better  than  the  first.  It  is  more 


Greetings  to  Our  Canadian  Kinsfolk.          25 

glorious  to  be  living  in  America  now  than  in  the  Athens 
of  Pericles,  or  in  the  Rome  of  Caesar  Augustus,  or  in 
England  during  the  wide  and  spacious  times  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  The  golden  age  is  ahead  of  us.  On  some 
future  generation  it  will  dawn  with  undreamed-of 
splendor.  God  is  still  on  his  throne.  The  world  be- 
longs to  him  and  not  to  the  devil.  Let  us  be  jubilant 
in  the  prospects  before  us.  It  is  a  time  to  shout  and 
sing: 

"We're  soldiers  fighting  for  our  God, 

Let  trembling  cowards  fly; 
We'll  stand  unbroken,  firm,  and  fixed, 

With  Christ  to  live  and  die." 

My  dear  brethren,  may  God  bless  you  in  the  midst 
of  your  toils !  In  the  most  important  respects  we  are 
one  with  you,  claiming  a  common  inheritance  of  Eng- 
lish law,  literature  and  civilization,  and  a  common  in- 
terest in  our  blessed  Methodism.  You  under  your 
northern  skies  and  amid  the  virgin  whiteness  of  your 
wintry  snows,  and  we  where  the  southern  sun  woos  the 
magnolia  into  its  perfect  beauty  and  fills  the  orange 
with  its  nectar,  will  not  cease  to  stand  in  the  panoplied 
strength  of  Christian  righteousness,  fighting  for  all 
good,  fighting  against  all  evil,  distrustful  of  ourselves, 
confident  in  the  Rock  of  our  salvation,  and  looking 
ever  with  longing  eyes  and  beating  hearts  to  our  re- 
lease from  toil  and  our  entrance  into  the  many  man- 
sions which  our  Lord  has  gone  to  prepare  for  us. 


II. 

SALUTATIONS  TO  OUR  TWIN  SISTER  OF 
THE  NORTH. 


"There  is  one  body,  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  ye  are  called  in 
one  hope  of  your  calling;  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism, 
one  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all, 
and  in  you  all."  (Eph.  iv.  4-6.) 


SALUTATIONS  TO  OUR  TWIN  SISTER  OF 
THE  NORTH. 

[Fraternal  address  delivered  before  the  General  Conference 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Chicago,  111.,  May,  1900.] 

Mr.  President,  Venerable  Bishops,  and  Honorable 
Brethren:  My  credentials,  which  have  just  been  read 
in  your  hearing,  certify  that  I  come  to  you  as  the  offi- 
cial bearer  of  fraternal  salutations  from  the  General 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South. 
If  I  were  to  conceal  my  belief  that  it  is  a  high  honor 
to  have  been  sent  on  such  an  errand,  I  should  be  guilty 
of  a  piece  of  unmanly  insincerity.  It  is,  moreover, 
most  agreeable  to  my  feelings  to  stand  on  this  plat- 
form and  look  squarely  into  the  faces  of  this  body  of 
Christian  men  without  the  slightest  misgiving  as  to 
how  my  presence  is  regarded,  but  with  the  definite 
conviction  that  my  welcome  here  is  as  warm  as  genuine 
fraternity  can  make  it. 

At  the  same  time  I  must  modestly  confess  that  in 
the  outset  I  hesitated  to  assume  a  task  the  proper  dis- 
charge of  which  calls  for  the  exercise  of  far  nobler 
faculties  than  any  which  I  dare  claim  to  possess.  If 
my  poor  utterance  should  seem  to  you  to  fall  below  the 
level  of  such  an  occasion,  let  me  crave  in  advance  the 
grace  of  your  brotherly  indulgence  and  beg  you  to 
look  away  from  me  to  the  million  and  a  half  true  and 
honest  Southern  Methodists  who  stand  behind  me  and 
whose  mouthpiece  and  organ  of  expression  I  am.  You 

(29) 


30  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

may  depend  upon  it  that  they  would  not  have  commis- 
sioned me  hither  if  they  had  not  been  deeply  interested 
in  you  and  your  work.  As  they  are  only  human  crea- 
tures, it  must  be  admitted  that  they  have  their  faults. 
But  it  cannot  be  set  down  against  them  that  they  lack 
frankness.  They  have  never  acquired  the  pernicious 
habit  of  professing  a  friendship  which  they  do  not  feel, 
nor  have  they  learned  the  villainous  art  of  using  am- 
biguous words  as  a  cloak  for  their  real  thoughts. 
Nothing  could  be  more  foreign  to  their  spirit  than  to 
take  a  conscious  part  in  a  mere  quadrennial  farce 
having  no  significance  of  any  sort  beyond  the  brief 
hour  required  for  its  performance  and  affronting  Al- 
mighty God  by  its  hollow  hypocrisy.  If  they  should 
ever  conclude  that  this  interchange  of  denominational 
courtesies  has  ceased  to  be  an  open  exhibition  of 'Chris- 
tian brotherhood  and  has  degenerated  into  a  tiresome 
and  formal  parade,  they  would  be  the  first  to  suggest 
its  discontinuance. 

Speaking,  then,  in  their  name  and  representing  what 
I  know  to  be  their  true  frame  of  mind,  I  give  you  fer- 
vent greeting  as  brethren  beloved  and  fellow  laborers 
in  the  kingdom  and  patience  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
praying  that  grace  and  peace  may  rest  upon  you,  and 
that  all  the  labor  of  your  hands  may  have  a  blessed 
issue  in  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  men. 
Now  I  make  bold  to  borrow  the  very  words  of  the 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles  and  to  use  them  as  the  me- 
dium and  vehicle  of  sentiments  which  are  too  deep  to 
find  adequate  outlet  through  any  unconsecrated  forms 
of  speech : 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    31 

"Wherefore  we  also,  after  we  heard  of  your  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus,  and  love  unto  all  the  saints,  cease  not  to  give 
thanks  for  you,  making  mention  of  you  in  our  prayers;  that 
the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of  glory,  may 
give  unto  you  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  revelation  in  the 
knowledge  of  him :  the  eyes  of  your  understanding  being  en- 
lightened; that  ye  may  know  what  is  the  hope  of  his  calling, 
and  what  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  his  inheritance  in  the 
saints,  and  what  is  the  exceeding  greatness  of  his  power  to 
us-ward  who  believe,  according  to  the  working  of  his  mighty 
power,  which  he  wrought  in  Christ,  when  he  raised  him  from 
the  dead,  and  set  him  at  his  own  right  hand  in  the  heavenly 
places,  far  above  all  principality,  and  power,  and  might,  and 
dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in  this 
world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come :  and  hath  put  all 
things  under  his  feet,  and  gave  him  to  be  the  head  over  all 
things  to  the  Church,  which  is  his  body,  the  fullness  of  him 
that  filleth  all  in  all." 

It  is  my  bounden  duty,  Mr.  President,  as  it  is  also 
my  great  pleasure,  to  return  to  you  our  hearty  thanks 
for  the  visit  of  those  distinguished  brethren,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Joseph  F.  Berry  and  the  Hon.  Jonathan  P.  Dolli- 
ver,  whom  you  were  kind  enough  to  depute  to  our 
General  Conference  assembled  in  the  city  of  Baltimore 
in  May,  1898.  Whether  the  manner  in  which  they 
were  entertained  while  among  us  was  perfectly  cordial, 
I  leave  it  for  them  to  declare.  But  both  courtesy  and 
truth  require  me  to  affirm  that  you  could  have  scarcely 
selected  two  gentlemen  more  fit  in  every  way  to  make 
a  favorable  impression  upon  our  people.  At  any  rate, 
we  shall  decline  to  believe  that  you  have  any  better 
representatives  than  they  until  we  have  had  ocular  and 
audible  demonstration  of  the  fact. 

Dr.  Berry  sets  the  pace  for  the  multitudinous  army 


32  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

of  Epworth  Leaguers,  and  must  needs,  therefore,  be 
alive  and  awake  in  all  the  fibers  of  his  being.  As  an 
editor  he  is  bright  without  being  flippant,  orthodox 
without  being  hidebound,  and  an  intense  Methodist 
without  being  bigoted.  His  message  to  us  was  wise 
and  weighty,  worthy  of  himself  and  worthy  of  you. 

Mr.  Dolliver,  born  in  a  parsonage  and  bred  on  a  four 
weeks'  circuit,  though  still  on  the  sunny  side  of  fifty, 
has  long  been  an  influential  member  of  the  Federal 
House  of  Representatives,  an  orator  the  tropical  splen- 
dors of  whose  eloquence  fascinate  every  audience  be- 
fore which  he  stands,  and  a  statesman  so  clean  in  char- 
acter and  so  broad  of  vision  as  to  be  well  fitted  for 
carrying  the  gravest  dignities  of  the  republic.  We  do 
not  forget,  Mr.  President,  that,  in  spite  of  his  long  res- 
idence in  Iowa,  he  is  a  native  of  old  Virginia ;  and  we 
may  be  excused  for  fancying  that  in  his  golden  sen- 
tences we  can  hear  some  far-off  echoes  of  those  tremen- 
dous periods  with  which  Patrick  Henry,  in  the  Revolu- 
tionary era,  shook  the  American  Continent  and  aston- 
ished the  world.  If  in  the  white  heat  of  our  enthusiasm 
we  cheered  everything  that  our  highly  esteemed  broth- 
er said  so  lustily  as  to  make  him  think  that  we  were 
ready  to  incorporate  it  all  in  the  creed,  we  must  not  be 
held  too  closely  to  the  record.  Some  of  us  were  quite 
possibly  in  the  condition  that  day  of  the  old  Tennes- 
seean  who,  at  the  close  of  a  stirring  sermon,  made  a 
liberal  subscription  to  the  support  of  the  preacher  and, 
when  he  was  afterwards  called  upon  to  pay  it,  excused 
himself  by  saying:  "I  was  a  little  too  religious  just  then 
to  be  capable  of  taking  care  of  my  own  interests." 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  what  more  shall  I  say? 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    33 

Usage  makes  it  proper  that  I  should  bring  you  some  re- 
port as  to  how  it  fares  with  us.  But  I  cannot  suppose 
it  likely  that  you  would  be  seriously  concerned  in  any 
mere  statistical  display  of  our  strength ;  and  I  remem- 
ber, besides,  the  striking  aphorism  of  Canning,  that 
''nothing  is  so  false  as  facts  except  figures."  Were  I 
to  affect  the  role  of  census  taker,  I  might  leave  either 
an  inadequate  or  an  exaggerated  impression  upon  your 
minds.  If  my  memory  serves  me  right,  there  is  Bib- 
lical warrant  also  for  the  notion  that  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sus takers  are  not  the  special  favorites  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence— a  fact  which  may  find  its  explanation  in  their 
disposition  to  suppress  or  minify  whatever  collides 
with  their  prejudices,  and  to  exploit  and  emphasize 
whatever  lends  support  to  their  favorite  opinions. 

But  it  requires  no  slightest  departure  from  absolute 
veracity  to  affirm  that  by  many  tokens  the  Lord  God  of 
our  fathers  abides  with  us.  The  pillar  of  cloud  still 
goes  before  us  by  day,  and  the  pillar  of  fire,  in  all  its 
ancient  glory,  still  flames  on  our  eyes  through  the  dark- 
ness of  the  darkest  nights.  With  many  things  to  de- 
depress  and  dismay  us,  we  have  also  unnumbered  rea- 
sons for  abounding  hopefulness ;  and  we  cannot  bring 
ourselves  to  believe  that  He  who  has  led  us  through 
the  storms  and  tempests  of  the  past  means  to  desert  us 
now.  That  was  a  just  and  wise  inference  drawn  by 
the  wife  of  Manoah  when  her  husband  was  shaken 
with  terror  at  the  ascent  of  the  angel  of  the  Lord  in 
the  sacrificial  flame:  '"If  the  Lord  were  pleased  to  kill 
us,  he  would  not  have  received  a  burnt  offering  and  a 
meat  offering  at  our  hands,  neither  would  he  have 
showed  us  all  these  things."  The  main  lesson  of  his- 
3 


34  'Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

tory  is  a  lesson  of  confidence  in  Jehovah.  It  is  not 
possible  that  pessimism  should  get  a  permanent  lodg- 
ment in  men's  minds  until  they  have  ceased  to  believe 
in  the  living  God,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for- 
ever, seated  now  as  of  old  on  his  throne,  high  and 
lifted  up,  with  the  trailing  glories  of  his  vestments  of 
light  filling  the  temple  of  the  universe,  and  the  sera- 
phim veiling  their  faces  with  their  wings  in  his  pres- 
ence, and  crying  to  one  another  day  and  night :  "Holy, 
holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of  hosts :  the  whole  earth  is  full 
of  his  glory."  We  believe  that  our  help  is  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  that  made  heaven  and  earth.  And  our 
deepest  prayer  is  that  of  the  Hebrew  psalmist :  "Give 
ear,  O  Shepherd  of  Israel,  thou  that  leadest  Joseph 
like  a  flock;  thou  that  dwellest  between  the  cherubim, 
shine  forth.  Before  Ephraim  and  Benjamin  and  Ma- 
nasseh,  stir  up  thy  strength,  and  come  and  save"  us." 

Since  1866  we  have  grown  from  427,000  communi- 
cants to  1,476,000.  During  this  whole  period  we  have 
had  but  one  year  of  arrested  growth.  In  1898  the 
General  Minutes  showed  a  decrease  in  the  membership 
of  about  8,000.  But  in  1899  the  tide  again  turned  in 
the  right  direction  with  an  increase  of  over  6,000.  All 
the  indications  are  that  we  shall  go  out  of  the  century 
with  1,500,000  names  on  our  Church  registers.  Sorry 
as  we  are  that  the  figures  are  not  greater,  we  are 
grateful  and  happy  that  they  are  not  less.  The  causes 
which  have  lately  led  to  an  arrest  in  the  rate  of  growth 
in  the  various  Protestant  denominations — our  own 
among  the  rest — are  quite  too  multiform  and  compli- 
cated to  be  set  forth  in  a  single  word.  It  is  not  worth 
while  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  self-conceited  the- 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     35 

orist  who  thinks  that  he  can  put  the  whole  case  in  a 
nutshell.  Nevertheless,  the  situation  is  one  that  excites 
painful  apprehension  and  demands  careful  and  prayer- 
ful investigation. 

Our  missionary  work  in  China,  Japan,  Korea,  Mex- 
ico, Cuba,  Brazil,  and  elsewhere  is  prospering  more 
largely  than  at  any  former  period  of  our  history. 
Slowly  but  surely  we  are  coming  to  grasp  the  full  force 
of  the  truth  that  the  business  of  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  not  to  nurse  itself,  but  to  evangelize  the 
world.  What  St.  Paul  said  of  his  personal  mission  is 
also  in  some  measure  true  of  the  whole  company  of 
the  faithful:  "Unto  me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of 
all  saints,  is  this  grace  given,  that  I  should  preach 
among  the  Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ ; 
and  to  make  all  men  see  what  is  the  fellowship  of  the 
mystery,  which  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  hath 
been  hid  in  God,  who  created  all  things  by  Jesus  Christ : 
to  the  intent  that  now  unto  the  principalities  and  pow- 
ers in  heavenly  places  might  be  known  by  the  Church 
the  manifold  wisdom  of  God,  according  to  the  eternal 
purpose  which  he  purposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord." 
The  adoption  of  any  narrower  program  than  the  one 
which  is  thus  so  magnificently  outlined  is  sure  to  bring 
on  spiritual  paralysis  and  to  end  at  last  in  utter  death. 
This  whole  world,  with  every  rational  creature  in  it, 
belongs  to  our  Lord  by  right  of  redemption,  and  it  is 
the  business  of  his  Church  to  see  to  it  that  as  speedily 
as  possible  he  comes  into  possession  of  his  own.  For 
foreign  and  domestic  missions,  including  the  contribu- 
tions of  the  Woman's  Board,  which  are  managed  with 
very  great  ability,  we  collect  and  disburse  not  far  from 


36  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

$600,000  per  annum.  Our  Board  of  Church  Extension, 
organized  in  1882,  grows  constantly  stronger.  It  now 
has  fixed  loan  funds  aggregating  over  $200,000,  and 
gathers  from  the  congregations  annually  about  $70,000 
for  current  needs. 

Our  publishing  interests  are  in  a  reasonably  healthy 
condition,  but  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  our  people 
at  large  do  not  show  so  intelligent  an  appreciation  of 
this  arm  of  power  as  could  be  desired.  The  conviction 
grows  upon  the  thoughtful  among  us  that  we  must 
make  a  larger  and  better  use  of  the  press  in  the  future 
than  we  have  done  in  the  past.  Whoever  can  devise  a 
feasible  plan  for  effecting  this  end  will  be  at  least  as 
well  entitled  to  canonization  as  some  people  that  have 
actually  passed  the  scrutiny  and  been  enrolled  among 
the  saints.  That  old  story  of  Martin  Luther's  throwing 
his  inkstand  at  the  devil  is  symbolic  of  many  meanings. 
Is  it  amiss  to  affirm  that  the  sturdy  reformer  was  wiser 
than  he  knew  ?  One  thing  is  certain :  the  devil  is  con- 
stantly throwing  his  inkstand  at  the  Church.  Let  us 
be  sure  to  make  the  game  as  lively  for  him  as  we  can. 
A  single  other  hint  may  be  let  slip  in  passing:  the 
success  of  our  Book  Concerns  is  to  be  measured,  not 
so  much  by  the  lengthening  list  of  their  publications, 
nor  by  the  increase  of  their  capital  stock,  as  by  the 
extent  to  which  they  actually  get  into  circulation  a  lit- 
erature that  is  so  sound  in  substance  and  so  attractive 
in  form  as  to  command  the  attention  of  the  reading 
public. 

Our  schools  and  colleges,  in  spite  of  many  embar- 
rassments, have  done  and  are  doing  a  great  work.  The 
energy,  persistency,  and  self-denial  of  the  men  who 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     37 

have  them  in  charge  deserve  the  highest  praise.  The 
educators  of  Methodism  have  been  to  the  full  as  faith- 
ful and  as  useful  as  any  other  class  of  her  servants.  It 
is  my  hope  and  belief  that  a  new  generation  of  trained 
and  competent  teachers  is  coming  on  who  will  prove  fit 
to  be  compared  with  Stephen  Olin,  Landon  C.  Garland, 
Henry  B.  Bascom,  Augustus  B.  Longstreet,  Robert 
Paine,  George  F.  Pierce,  Ephraim  E.  Wiley,  James  A. 
Duncan,  William  M.  Wightman,  Francis  A.  Mood,  and 
others,  the  fine  old  masters  who  in  their  own  characters 
set  before  our  Southern  youth  a  living  illustration  of 
what  Isaac  Taylor  so  finely  described  as  "the  triple 
nobility  of  nature,  culture,  and  faith."  All  the  signs 
go  to  show  that  we  shall  succeed  in  raising  the  mil- 
lion and  a  half  dollars  that  we  have  asked  as  a  twen- 
tieth century  thank  offering  for  educational  purposes. 
Only  a  few  weeks  ago  Vanderbilt  University  received 
a  bequest  of  about  $200,000  from  Mrs.  Mary  J.  Fur- 
man,  of  Nashville,  which  is  the  third  large  gift  that  it 
has  had  from  elect  Methodist  women,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  fact  that  the  final  and  controlling  consideration 
which  led  Commodore  Vanderbilt  to  open  his  purse  to 
it  so  royally  in  the  first  instance  was  the  desire  to  grat- 
ify the  wishes  of  his  excellent  Methodist  wife,  who,  as 
good  providence  would  have  it,  was  also  a  cousin  of 
the  late  Mrs.  Bishop  McTyeire.  Trinity  College,  Dur- 
ham, N.  C.,  has  been  the  recipient  in  recent  years  of 
$400,000  or  $500,000  from  Mr.  Washington  Duke  and 
his  sons,  and  will  probably  get  whatever  sums  are 
needed  for  its  further  development.  Five  or  six  of  our 
other  colleges  have  passed  the  experimental  stage  with 
good  equipments,  larger  or  smaller  endowments,  and 


38  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

the  prospect  of  increasing  support  from  many  quarters. 
The  rest  are  having  a  hard  time  trying  to  make  ends 
meet.  Some  of  them  will  survive  and  flourish,  and 
some,  it  is  to  be  feared,  will  go  the  way  of  so  many 
similar  institutions  in  the  South  and  West.  As  Meth- 
odism believes  in  a  gospel  of  light,  it  must  be  true  to 
the  old  traditions  and  educate.  Let  the  State  do  what 
it  will,  the  Church  is  bound  to  look  out  for  the  higher 
training  of  her  youth.  She  has  some  lessons  to  teach 
them  which  the  State  has  no  voice  to  convey,  and  at 
whatever  cost  she  must  sustain,  enlarge,  and  endow  her 
seats  of  learning.  Is  it  a  note  of  narrowness  to  add 
that  they  in  turn  must  be  true  and  loyal  to  her  inter- 
ests? A  Church  college  is  no  better  than  any  other, 
unless  it  is  better.  That  it  should  venture  to  call  for 
ecclesiastical  patronage  and  yet  refuse  to  submit  to 
ecclesiastical  guidance  is  an  anomaly  not  to  be  'toler- 
ated. What  right  has  it  to  ask  for  anything  more  in 
the  way  of  support  than  it  is  willing  to  give  in  the 
way  of  service?  We  Methodists  are  at  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  narrow  sectarianism,  for  which 
let  us  devoutly  thank  God.  But  this  is  no  reason  why 
we  should  not  openly  fly  our  denominational  banner 
over  all  the  institutions  of  every  sort  that  depend  upon 
us  for  maintenance. 

The  Sunday  school  cause  was  never  better  looked 
after  among  us  than  at  the  present  time.  Each  year 
marks  an  advance  in  the  number  of  schools,  of  teachers, 
and  of  scholars.  That  there  are  still  grave  deficiencies 
in  the  quality  of  the  instruction  given  and  the  other 
work  done  through  this  agency  is  lamentably  true,  but 
that  there  are  also  marked  and  constant  improvements 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     39 

is  equally  beyond  dispute.  My  candid  opinion  is  that 
our  Sunday  school  literature  is  equal  in  its  range  and 
virility  to  the  best  in  the  United  States.  Another  fact 
furnishes  ground  for  gratitude:  there  is  a  widespread 
and  deepening  feeling  among  all  concerned  that  the 
supreme  end  to  be  sought  after  is  the  conversion  of 
the  children  to  Christ,  and  that  all  efforts  which  do 
not  look  to  this  consummation  are  a  mere  beating  of 
the  air. 

We  were  a  little  behind  you  in  adopting  the  Epworth 
League,  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  we  shall 
ever  quite  catch  up.  There  be  some  among  us  whose 
solicitude  on  the  subject  is  not  sufficiently  keen  to 
cause  them  to  lose  sleep.  The  fact  that  the  bulk  of 
our  members  live  in  the  country,  and  often  far  apart 
from  one  another,  renders  it  difficult  to  bring  the 
young  people  together  except  on  the  Lord's  day;  and 
there  are  other  reasons  lying  in  the  peculiarities  of  our 
social  life  that  militate  in  some  measure  against  the 
perfect  success  of  the  League  movement.  It  must  not 
be  inferred  from  this  remark  that  our  labors  herein 
have  been  marked  by  failure.  Far  from  it.  We  have 
in  the  aggregate  an  intelligent  and  consecrated  host  of 
young  men  and  women  (about  250,000)  banded  to- 
gether under  the  inspiring  motto  of  "All  for  Christ" 
and  following  in  the  wake  of  a  most  competent  leader- 
ship. The  modesty,  the  docility,  the  "sweet  reason- 
ableness" which  they  have  generally  displayed  in  their 
relation  to  the  pastors  and  others  in  authority  is,  we 
take  it,  an  omen  for  good,  as  is  also  their  unwearied 
zeal  in  all  manner  of  good  works. 

If  asked  as  to  the  character  of  our  pulpit,  I  should 


40  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

be  compelled  to  give  a  qualified  reply.  My  impression 
is  that  we  have  fewer  men  of  supreme  preaching  abil- 
ity than  formerly.  There  is  no  one  quite  like  Bascom, 
or  Pierce,  or  Kavanaugh,  or  Doggett,  or  Marvin,  or 
Munsey,  towering  up  head  and  shoulders  above  his 
brethren.  But  there  are  some  who  as  expounders  and 
proclaimers  of  the  Word  of  God  are  the  equals,  if  not 
the  superiors,  of  any  of  their  predecessors ;  and  there 
is  a  large  class  who  for  vigor  of  thought,  lucidity  of 
expression,  and  fervor  of  spirit  are  workmen  that  need 
not  to  be  ashamed.  That  the  general  average  of  the 
preaching  has  improved  is  certain.  If  there  has  been 
any  serious  loss,  it  is  found  in  the  failure  to  look  for 
immediate  results  as  the  fathers  did.  Possibly,  but  not 
certainly,  this  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  changed 
conditions.  It  calls  for  inquiry.  The  great  majority 
of  our  ministers  preach  a  simple  and  unadulterated 
gospel — '"Christ  and  him  crucified,"  "Jesus  and  the 
resurrection" — with  a  firm  persuasion  that  it  is  "the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation."  Not  many  of  them 
waste  time  on  alien  themes  or  squander  their  strength 
in  running  after  vain  fads.  The  rule  with  them  is  to 
keep  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  It  is  only  now  and 
then  that  a  brother  makes  his  appearance  who,  without 
scientific  training,  cherishes  a  conceit  of  competency  to 
teach  the  scientists,  as  Gideon  taught  the  elders  of 
Succoth,  "with  thorns  and  briers  of  the  wilderness"; 
or,  without  knowledge  of  history,  politics,  and  econom- 
ics, dreams  that  he  possesses  the  ability  to  reconstruct 
society  from  the  foundations  up;  or,  without  more 
than  the  scantest  acquaintance  with  the  wide  field  of 
literature,  has  the  crude  audacity  to  spin  out  a  series 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    41 

of  thin  and  vaporous  discourses  on  "The  Ethics  of  Po- 
etry" or  "The  Religious  Aims  of  the  Great  Novelists." 
Such  ministers  soon  run  their  course  in  our  latitude. 
The  average  Southerner  refuses  to  go  to  church  to 
listen  to  a  stale  rehash  of  the  daily  newspaper,  or  a 
bungling  lecture  on  evolution,  or  a  milk-and-water 
essay  in  belles  Icttres.  He  will  tolerate  a  good  deal  of 
dullness  and  even  of  stupidity  if  it  has  a  distinctly  reli- 
gious flavor  in  it,  but  he  has  no  taste  for  trivial  semi- 
secularities  in  the  house  of  God. 

The  moral  tone  of  our  ministry  is,  on  the  whole, 
most  excellent.  A  cleaner  or  more  upright  body  of 
men  does  not  exist  in  this  modern  world.  As  a  rule, 
they  are  not  only  correct  in  outward  deportment,  but 
are  also  experimentally  familiar  with  the  spiritualities 
of  religion  and  utterly  devoted  to  Jesus  Christ.  They 
have  had  a  severe  schooling  in  poverty,  in  self-denial, 
in  all  manner  of  hardships ;  but  it  has  yielded  in  them 
the  peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness.  You  can  never 
know,  Mr.  President,  at  what  a  terrible  cost  the  in- 
terests of  Methodism  and  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in 
general  have  been  protected  in  the  South  since  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War.  But  it  must  now  be  clear  to 
all  open-minded  persons  that  it  was  better  for  our 
manhood  that  we  should  stand  by  our  own  religious 
organizations  and  share  in  all  respects  the  lot  of  the 
people  than  that  we  should  desert  them  in  the  day  of 
disaster  with  the  aim  and  hope  of  a  missionary  stipend 
from  other  sources.  Nothing  could  have  so  separated 
us  from  our  struggling  flocks  as  the  knowledge  on  their 
part  that  we  were  drawing  pay  from  beyond  the  Ohio. 
The  course  of  events  has  fully  vindicated  the  wisdom 


42  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

of  our  action.  Without  a  helping  hand  or  a  cheering 
word  from  all  the  world,  and  with  a  chorus  of  censure 
and  condemnation  that  was  often  loud  in  our  ears,  we 
have  held  the  field  and  saved  the  situation,  demon- 
strating afresh  that  a  faithful  ministry  can  subsist 
wherever  a  Christian  people  can  live,  and  that  the 
toils  and  sacrifices  of  such  a  ministry  are  never  in  vain. 
We  have  not  latterly  introduced  any  marked  changes 
into  our  polity,  and  we  have  not  had  to.  As  far  back 
as  1866  we  fell  into  a  temporary  spell  of  radicalism  and 
overhauled  our  house  in  various  particulars,  abolish- 
ing, not,  it  is  true,  the  law  of  probation,  but  the  hard 
and  fast  six  months'  limit,  removing  the  class  meeting 
test  of  membership  and  putting  that  particular  means 
of  grace  on  the  same  basis  with  others,  extending  the 
pastoral  limit  from  two  to  four  years,  and  introducing 
voluntarily  and  without  compulsion  or  pressure  of  any 
kind  equal  lay  representation  in  the  General  Confer- 
ence and  effective  lay  representation  in  the  Annual 
Conferences.  At  that  time  things  were  in  so  ill  a  shape 
with  us  that  it  was  thought  we  could  not  make  them 
much  worse  by  any  alterations  and  might  possibly  im- 
prove them.  But  it  would  be  a  grave  error  to  infer 
that  the  leaders  in  the  New  Orleans  General  Confer- 
ence were  simply  burrowing  in  the  dark.  On  the 
contrary,  they  were  men  of  the  highest  intelligence, 
who  for  long  years  had  been  going  over  all  the  ground 
in  the  light  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  ecclesiastical 
history;  and  they  were  fully  convinced  in  their  own 
minds  that  on  every  one  of  the  points  mentioned  they 
were  moving  in  accordance  with  the  drift  and  spirit 
of  the  gospel  and  responding  to  the  imperative  demands 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    43 

of  the  age.  We  rejoice  in  the  fact  that  in  respect  to 
these  particular  issues  they  thus  put  our  Church  far  in 
advance  of  any  other  branch  of  Methodism  in  the 
world,  and  paved  the  way  along  which  all  the  rest  have 
since  been  moving  with  the  steadiness  of  gravitation. 
There  is  nobody  in  our  ranks  that  would  even  think  of 
going  back  to  the  old  order.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  with  regard  to  lay  delegation.  Our  laymen  have 
proved  vastly  beneficial  to  us  in  the  deliberations  of  the 
General  Conference.  Quite  unexpectedly,  they  have 
always  been  a  trifle  more  conservative  than  the  minis- 
ters and  more  than  once  have  put  a  decided  check  upon 
hasty  and  ill-conceived  legislation.  Nor  have  they  been 
less  useful  in  the  administrative  work  of  the  Annual 
Conferences.  We  simply  could  not  do  without  them, 
and  we  are  by  no  means  minded  to  try  the  experi- 
ment. 

There  is  another  point  concerning  which  it  may  not 
be  improper  for  me  to  speak  a  word  in  this  connection, 
though  in  doing  so  I  must  be  allowed  to  disclaim  the 
slightest  disposition  to  thrust  any  impertinent  sugges- 
tions into  the  course  of  your  discussions.  The  General 
Conference  of  1854,  at  the  instigation  of  that  Ajax 
Telamon  of  Methodism,  Dr.  William  A.  Smith,  of 
Virginia,  by  mere  legislative  action,  invested  the  epis- 
copacy with  a  veto  power,  appending  the  following 
new  proviso  to  the  Restrictive  Rules : 

When  any  rule  or  regulation  is  adopted  by  the  General 
Conference  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  bishops,  is  unconsti- 
tutional, the  bishops  may  present  to  the  General  Conference 
their  opinion  to  such  a  rule  or  regulation  with  the  reasons 
therefor;  and  if,  after  taking  the  objections  and  reasons  of  the 


44  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

bishops,  two-thirds  of  the  members  of  the  Conference  present 
shall  vote  in  favor  of  the  rule  or  regulation  so  objected  to,  it 
shall  have  the  force  of  law ;  otherwise  it  shall  be  null  and  void. 

This  was  in  general  line  with  the  declaration  made  by 
Bishop  Joshua  Soule  in  1824,  as  follows :  "The  General 
Conference  is  not  the  proper  judge  of  the  constitution- 
ality of  its  own  acts.  If  the  General  Conference  be  the 
sole  judge  of  such  questions,  then  there  are  no  bounds 
to  its  power."  But  it  will  be  seen  that,  after  all,  the  final 
power  to  decide  on  the  constitutionality  of  proposed 
legislation  was  left  by  the  action  of  1854  in  the  hands  of 
a  two-thirds  majority  of  the  General  Conference. 

The  case  stood  so  until  1870,  when  a  resolution  was 
introduced  instructing  the  Committee  on  Episcopacy 
to  inquire,  first,  whether  this  proviso  had  been  legally 
introduced  into  the  Discipline,  and,  secondly,  whether 
any  additional  legislation  in  regard  to  it  was  necessary. 
On  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  session  Dr.  Leroy  M. 
Lee,  nephew  of  Jesse  Lee  and  a  famous  man  in  his 
own  right,  brought  in  a  report  from  the  committee,  a 
great  State  paper  dealing  with  every  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject in  a  most  masterly  way,  not  only  maintaining  that 
the  General  Conference  is  incompetent  by  its  own  ac- 
tion to  add  any  proviso  to  the  Restrictive  Rules,  but 
going  farther  and  insisting,  inter  alia,  on  the  following 
positions : 

The  veto  power  does  not  inhere  in  the  episcopal  office. 
.  .  .  The  General  Conference  is  a  dependent  and  respon- 
sible body — dependent  for  its  being  and  authority  upon  the 
original  body  of  elders  and  responsible  to  them  for  its  fidelity 
in  the  use  of  the  powers  delegated  to  it.  But  without  some 
provision  of  the  Constitution  such  as  was  aimed  to  be  estab- 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    45 

lished  in  the  proviso  under  consideration,  there  is  no  legitimate 
or  authoritative  mode  either  of  questioning  the  constitution- 
ality of  its  acts  or  of  admitting  them  to  another  tribunal  for 
adjudication.  And  in  the  absence  of  suitable  provision  for 
this  purpose  the  General  Conference  may  exercise  the  powers, 
even  if  it  does  not  claim  the  right  of  determining  the  consti- 
tutionality of  its  own  acts;  and  in  such  an  event  the  General 
Conference  absorbs  all  power  into  itself,  its  responsibility 
ceases,  and  it  can  "revoke,  alter,  change,  or  destroy"  even  the 
Constitution  itself  at  its  own  will  and  by  its  own  act.  Such 
power  is  not  given  to  it  nor  intended  to  be  given.  But  all  this 
power  would  have  been  given  if  in  what  was  given  was  in- 
cluded the  right  of  determining  the  constitutionality  of  its 
own  acts.  The  original  body  of  elders  delegated  everything  of 
the  powers  they  possessed,  if  they  delegated  this  power.  They 
reserved  nothing  to  themselves  if  they  did  not  reserve  the 
right  of  determining  the  constitutionality  of  the  acts  of  the 
delegated  body,  if  they  did  not  reserve  the  right  to  hold  their 
agents  and  representatives  in  the  grasp  of  a  grave,  dignified, 
and  ceaseless  responsibility  to  themselves  as  the  ultimate  and 
only  legitimate  judge  of  their  acts  and  of  their  fidelity  to  the 
engagements  and  obligations  of  the  Constitution  made  and 
provided  for  their  special  guidance  and  government.  It  is 
incredible  that  such  a  body  of  men  as  those  who  inaugurated 
the  Constitution  of  the  Church  and  checked  and  restrained 
the  General  Conference  with  such  limitations  to  its  acts  and 
such  restraints  upon  its  power  could  have  been  so  incautious 
and  inconsiderate  as  to  deprive  themselves  so  utterly  of  any 
further  and  all  future  relations  to  and  control  over  those  to 
whom  they  intrusted  their  rights  and  delegated  their  powers. 
Such  a  supposition  would  be  an  assault  upon  their  integrity 
and  intelligence  as  unjust  as  it  is  unmerited. 

To  set  specific  limits  alike  to  the  power  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  and  to  the  authority  of  the  bishops,  a 
new  proviso,  prepared  by  Dr.  Lee,  was  then  passed  by 
a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  General  Conference  and  sent 


46  'Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

around  to  the  Annual  Conferences,  where  it  received  a 
three- fourths  vote.    It  reads  as  follows : 

Provided,  That  when  any  rule  or  regulation  is  adopted  by 
the  General  Conference  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  bishops, 
is  unconstitutional,  the  bishops  may  present  to  the  Conference 
which  passed  said  rule  or  regulation  their  objections  thereto 
with  their  reasons;  and  if  then  the  General  Conference  shall 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  adhere  to  its  action  on  said  rule  or  regu- 
lation, it  shall  then  take  the  course  prescribed  for  altering  a 
restrictive  rule;  and  if  thus  passed  upon  affirmatively,  the 
bishops  shall  announce  that  such  rule  or  regulation  takes  effect 
from  that  time. 

Twenty-four  years  elapsed  from  the  date  of  its  pas- 
sage before  the  power  which  it  bestows  on  the  bishops 
was  ever  called  into  use.  In  1894  a  bill  which  indi- 
rectly made  it  possible  that  a  layman  should  sit  on  the 
trial  committee  of  a  minister  was  held  to  be  obnoxious 
to  the  Fifth  Restrictive  Rule  and  vetoed,  and  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  took  no  further  action  in  the  premises. 
Some  rather  amusing  consequences  have  followed  upon 
this  single  exercise  of  the  episcopal  veto.  We  thought 
we  knew  exactly  what  our  Constitution  was,  and  some 
of  us  were  a  little  inclined  to  make  game  of  your  per- 
plexities thereto  anent.  But  it  turns  out  that  we  are  not 
so  certain  about  it  as  we  were,  and  we  now  have  a 
learned  commission  at  work  for  the  purpose  of  reaching 
a  determination.  There  are  wise  men  among  us  who 
rest  easier  of  nights  because  of  this  detent  in  our 
machinery. 

If  time  and  circumstances  allowed,  there  are  many 
other  features  of  our  ecclesiastical  life  and  methods 
which  I  should  be  glad  to  bring  to  your  attention.  But 
I  have  heard  that  it  is  possible  for  a  fraternal  delegate 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    47 

to  speak  too  long,  and  I  shall  therefore  begin  to  consider 
the  propriety  of  bringing  my  address  to  a  close.  Be- 
fore doing  so,  however,  I  must  be  permitted  to  say  that 
you  and  we  alike  have  a  rich  common  inheritance,  and 
that  hereafter  nothing  for  good  or  ill  can  happen  to 
either  one  of  us  that  will  not  materially  affect  the  other 
also. 

i.  We  have  a  common  Methodism.  Everything  be- 
yond 1844  belongs  to  us  both  alike.  Wesley  and  White- 
field,  Embury  and  Strawbridge,  Coke  and  Asbury,  Mc- 
Kendree  and  Soule,  and  the  whole  brotherhood  of  itin- 
erants that  rode  round  the  continent,  preaching  the 
most  rational,  the  most  joyous,  the  most  commanding 
gospel  that  this  world  has  ever  heard — all  are  ours. 
The  achievements  that  they  have  wrought  cannot  be 
selfishly  and  exclusively  claimed  by  either  section.  If 
the  South  sent  Freeborn  Garretson  and  Jesse  Lee  and 
Peter  Akers  and  John  P.  Durbin  to  the  North,  the 
North  sent  Joshua  Soule  and  William  Winans  and 
Jefferson  Hamilton  and  Stephen  Olin  to  the  South,  the 
last  to  be  converted  in  a  humble  Methodist  home  in 
Carolina  and  sent  back  to  his  native  New  England  as 
a  burning  and  shining  light.  The  tides  of  personal 
activity  and  of  religious  influence  flowed  backward  and 
forward  over  all  imaginary  lines.  In  those  early  days 
we  were  one  in  every  sense.  Nor  can  any  unprejudiced 
man  read  the  proceedings  of  the  great  Conference  that 
issued  in  disruption  without  feeling  that  the  partici- 
pants in  the  debates,  instead  of  being  angry  partisans 
anxious  to  precipitate  a  revolution,  were  thoughtful 
and  godly  men  most  solicitous  to  avoid  such  a  catas- 
trophe. What  was  done  was  done  in  sorrow,  not  in 


48  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

anger.  The  parting  caused  a  thousand  heartaches. 
The  anger  came  later  and  flamed  out  at  last  in  bitter 
and  passionate  speech.  Many  things  were  said  by 
your  representatives  and  by  ours  that  in  our  cooler 
moments  we  cannot  possibly  justify,  things  that  must 
have  grieved  the  heart  of  the  compassionate  Christ 
who  died  for  us.  They  ought  to  be  buried  in  oblivion. 
The  day  for  utterance  of  that  sort  is  gone.  We  know 
one  another  better  now,  and  we  understand  the  men  of 
half  a  century  ago  better  than  they  understood  them- 
selves. In  our  years  of  separation  we  have  doubtless 
drifted  apart  in  some  outward  and  noticeable  partic- 
ulars. But  a  careful  study  of  the  two  Episcopal 
Methodisms,  made  in  large  part  on  the  ground  where 
they  are  both  actually  at  work,  has  served  to  convince 
me  that,  after  all,  the  differences  between  them  are 
infinitesimal  when  compared  with  the  points  in  which 
they  agree.  Superficially  disunited,  they  are  yet  linked 
together  by  a  thousand  ties  as  close  and  holy  as  the 
love  of  God  can  make  them.  Even  in  outward  aspects 
they  are  as  much  alike  as  two  handsome  sisters,  each 
one  of  whom,  while  retaining  her  individuality  of  ex- 
pression and  bearing,  also  carries  all  the  family  marks. 
Why  should  there  be  any  unkind  or  jealous  feelings 
between  them?  This  is  the  year  of  grace  1900,  and 
the  world  is  sweeping  forward  at  a  rate  which  makes 
the  old  contentions  look  distant  and  small.  The  only 
people,  North  or  South,  who  still  cherish  the  hates  and 
discords  of  1844  or  1861  are  those  who,  like  the  Gad- 
arine  demoniacs,  "make  their  dwelling  among  the 
tombs."  Far  be  it  from  us  who  stand  fronting  the 
surpassing  glories  of  the  future  ages  to  waste  our 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    49 

energies  by  digging  forever  in  the  cold  ashes  of  burned- 
out  controversies.  Magnanimity  breeds  magnanimity 
by  a  natural  law.  It  should  be  our  highest  aim  to  pro- 
voke one  another  to  love  and  to  good  works.  Ever 
since  President  Henry  Wade  Rogers  appeared  before 
our  General  Conference  at  Memphis  in  1894  and  de- 
livered himself  with  such  Christian  fairness  on  the 
historical  issues  between  us,  we  Southern  Methodists, 
not  to  be  outdone  in  generosity,  have  been  perfectly 
willing  to  grant  that  when  you  withdrew  from  us  under 
the  terms  of  a  solemn  mutual  compact  "it  was  a  sepa- 
ration and  not  a  secession."  Let  it  stand  at  that.  It 
may  interest  you  to  know  that  our  last  General  Con- 
ference fully  ratified  the  work  of  the  Joint  Commission 
on  Federation  and  continued  our  commission  with  full 
power  to  act.  Let  us  devoutly  pray  that  the  final  out- 
come may  be  so  perfect  an  adjustment  of  our  misun- 
derstandings as  will'  destroy  our  lingering  rivalries, 
remove  the  last  vestige  of  bitterness,  and  enable  us  to 
deliver  the  full  force  of  our  glorious  Methodism  upon 
any  given  point  at  a  given  time.  What  specific  meas- 
ures may  be  adopted  to  secure  this  result  is  a  matter  of 
small  moment.  But  it  will  be  an  unspeakable  disgrace 
to  us  if  in  the  face  of  all  our  bitter  and  banded  foes 
we  waste  an  ounce  of  energy  or  a  dollar  of  money  in 
fighting  one  another. 

2.  We  have  a  common  country.  And  what  a  country 
it  is !  Stretching  away  through  endless  leagues  from 
the  Penobscot  and  the  Kennebec  on  the  east  to  the 
Sacramento  and  the  Columbia  on  the  west,  and  from  the 
Great  Lakes  on  the  north  to  the  Florida  Keys  on  the 
south,  with  its  outlying  fringes  of  possessions  and  de- 
4 


50  'Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

pendencies,  it  is  the  mightiest  seat  of  empire  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  The  allegation  is  sometimes 
brought  against  the  Southerner  that  he  is  naturally 
sectional  and  provincial  in  his  temper;  and,  truth  to 
tell,  he  does  love  his  own  sunny  home  with  an  ardor 
that  colder  folk  find  it  hard  to  understand.  But  he  is 
none  the  less  a  national  patriot  for  all  that.  What  is 
patriotism  but  provincialism  on  a  large  scale?  Pas- 
sionate local  attachments  are  the  raw  material  out  of 
which  affection  for  one's  whole  country  is  manufac- 
tured. There  are  no  better  Americans  than  those  who 
dwell  below  the  Potomac,  and  none  more  ready  when 
the  emergency  arises  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  glory 
and  honor  of  these  United  States.  They  revere  the 
common  flag  which  flies  in  beauty  and  triumph  over 
sea  and  land,  and  they  devoutly  trust  that  wherever  it 
is  spread  to  the  breeze  it  may  be  the  symbol  not  merely 
of  American  authority  and  power,  but  also  of  American 
laws  and  institutions,  meaning  not  one  thing  here  and 
another  yonder,  but  liberty,  opportunity,  and  progress 
everywhere.  For  they  have  taken  to  heart  those  preg- 
nant words  of  a  great  historian :  "From  all  the  history 
of  the  European  world  since  the  later  days  of  the 
Roman  republic,  there  is  no  more  important  lesson  to 
be  learned  than  this — that  it  is  impossible  for  a  free 
people  to  govern  a  dependent  people  despotically  with- 
out endangering  its  own  freedom." 

3.  Behind  us  we  have  a  common  history.  Though 
each  one  of  the  original  colonies  started  as  a  separate 
and  independent  settlement,  yet  almost  from  the  very 
beginning  they  were  all  drawn  more  or  less  closely  to- 
gether by  forces  that  were  as  irresistible  as  the  move- 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     51 

ment  of  the  tides.  The  Revolutionary  War  drove  them 
into  a  loose  confederation,  and  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention of  1787,  when  its  action  had  been  ratified  by 
the  assent  of  the  various  sovereign  States,  bound  them 
into  a  close  Federal  Union.  Thenceforward  the  streams 
of  their  political  life  flowed  more  and  more  into  one 
broad  channel.  There  was  never  any  more  perfect 
buncombe  than  the  threadbare  talk  of  two  distinct  civ- 
ilizations— Puritan  and  Cavalier — radiating  from  Ply- 
mouth Rock  and  Jamestown  respectively  and  clashing 
with  one  another  from  the  beginning.  Real  Cavaliers 
were  always  scarce  in  the  South,  even  in  Virginia, 
which  knew  them  not  outside  of  the  tidewater  region. 
In  our  early  Tennessee  history  we  had  only  two  of  any 
prominence,  the  brothers  William  and  Willie  Blount, 
whose  great-grandfather  was  a  follower  of  King  Charles 
and  fled  to  North  Carolina  after  the  establishment  of 
the  commonwealth.  In  Kentucky,  unless  I  am  much 
at  fault,  they  had  none  at  all.  The  South  was  settled 
mainly  by  middle-class  English,  Scotch-Irish,  German, 
and  Huguenot  immigrants. 

And  not  all  New  Englanders  were  Puritans  even  in 
blood,  much  less  in  temper  and  disposition.  Such  men 
as  Caleb  dishing  and  Benjamin  F.  Butler  were  also 
types  and  stood  each  for  a  large  class.  It  is  worth 
noting  that  even  Daniel  Webster,  the  New  Hampshire 
Colossus,  whose  reply  to  Hayne  was  one  of  the  in- 
spirations of  my  boyhood,  had  nearly  all  the  personal 
shortcomings  that  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  the 
special  inheritance  of  the  Cavalier,  and  that  John  C. 
Calhoun,  the  incarnation  of  South  Carolina,  chaste  as 
an  icicle  and  incorruptible  as  Aristides,  had  all  the 


52  Methodist  Federation" and  Union. 

virtues  that  are  commonly  attributed  to  the  Puritans. 
As  to  the  West,  its  citizenship  from  the  start  has  been 
extremely  composite.  There  is  to-day  scarcely  a  com- 
munity in  this  State  of  Illinois  that  is  not  now  made  up 
in  part  of  men  and  women  whose  parents  or  grand- 
parents came  from  the  South. 

May  I  not  say,  without  suspicion  of  arrogance  or  of 
self-assertion,  that  in  winning  this  country  and  creating 
this  government  of  ours  the  South  did  her  full  share  ? 
If  I  should  seem  to  you  to  tell  only  our  part  of  the 
story,  it  is  because  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  you  will 
not  be  behindhand  in  telling  yours.  And  has  not  each 
American  an  undivided  interest  in  every  great  and 
noble  thing  that  any  American  has  done?  To  use  the 
very  words  of  John  Fiske,  "the  first  formal  defiance  of 
the  Stamp  Act  came  from  Virginia"  in  the  form  of 
Patrick  Henry's  "resolves,"  which  were  adopted  by  the 
House  of  Burgesses  in  1765.  At  the  Congress  which 
convened  in  New  York  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year,  in 
response  to  a  circular  letter  from  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature,  "it  was  Christopher  Gadsden,  of  South 
Carolina,  who  of  all  the  delegates  present  took  the 
broadest  ground  in  behalf  both  of  liberty  and  of  united 
action  among  the  colonies.  He  objected  to  sending 
petitions  to  Parliament,  lest  thereby  its  paramount  au- 
thority should  implicitly  and  unwillingly  be  acknowl- 
edged." It  was  Thomas  Jefferson  who  ten  years  later 
framed  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  Richard 
Henry  Lee  who  moved  its  adoption.  It  was  George 
Washington  who  in  the  teeth  of  the  most  disheartening 
conditions  held  our  tattered  army  together  and  led  it 
to  final  victory.  Here  in  Chicago  it  is  proper  to  add 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    53 

that  it  was  George  Rogers  Clarke  with  his  few  hun- 
dred Virginians  who  took  the  Northwest  Territory  for 
the  nascent  republic.  As  Theodore  Roosevelt  says 
("The  Winning  of  the  West")  :  "Alone  and  with  the 
very  slenderest  means  he  conquered  and  held  a  vast  and 
very  beautiful  region  which  but  for  him  would  have 
formed  a  part  of  a  foreign  and  hostile  empire."  Had 
it  not  been  for  his  far-sighted  policy  and  his  indomi- 
table courage,  Canada  would  probably  have  come  down 
to  the  Ohio  River  (and  Arthur  Edwards  might  have 
been  born  a  subject  of  Queen  Victoria). 

Mr.  Roosevelt  frankly  adds  some  further  statements 
that  are  likely  to  startle  those  who  have  not  taken  the 
pains  to  investigate  the  facts.  The  subject  is  so  im- 
portant that  an  extensive  quotation  may  be  pardoned : 

The  way  in  which  the  southern  part  of  our  Western  coun- 
try— that  is,  all  the  land  south  of  the  Ohio,  and  from  thence 
on  to  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Pacific — was  won  and  settled 
stands  quite  alone.  The  region  north  of  it  was  filled  up  in 
quite  a  different  manner.  The  Southwest,  including  therein 
what  was  once  simply  called  the  West  and  afterwards  the 
Middle  West,  was  won  by  the  people  themselves,  acting  as 
individuals  or  as  groups  of  individuals,  who  hewed  out  their 
own  fortunes  in  advance  of  any  governmental  action.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Northwest,  speaking  broadly,  was  acquired  by 
the  government,  the  settlers  merely  taking  possession  of  what 
the  whole  country  guaranteed  them.  The  Northwest  is  es- 
sentially a  national  domain ;  it  is  fitting  that  it  should  be  as  it 
is,  not  only  by  position,  but  by  feeling  the  heart  of  the  nation. 
North  of  the  Ohio  the  regular  army  went  first.  The  settle- 
ments grew  up  behind  the  shelter  of  the  Federal  troops  of 
Harmar,  St.  Clair,  Wayne,  and  of  their  successors  even 
to  our  own  day.  The  wars  in  which  the  borderers  themselves 
bore  any  part  were  few  and  trifling  compared  to  the  contests 


54  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

waged  by  the  adventurers  who  won  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and 
Texas.  In  the  Southwest  the  early  settlers  acted  as  their  own 
army  and  supplied  both  leaders  and  men.  Sevier,  Robertson, 
Clarke,  and  Boone  led  their  fellow  pioneers  to  battle,  as  Jack- 
son did  afterwards,  and  Houston  did  later  still.  Indeed,  the 
Southwesterners  not  only  won  their  own  soil  for  themselves, 
but  they  were  the  chief  instruments  in  the  original  acquisition 
of  the  Northwest  also.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  conquest  of  the 
Illinois  towns  in  1799,  we  would  probably  never  have  had  any 
Northwest  to  settle.  And  the  huge  tract  between  the  Upper 
Mississippi  and  the  Columbia,  then  called  Upper  Louisiana, 
also  fell  into  our  hands  only  because  the  Kentuckians  and 
Tennesseeans  were  resolutely  bent  upon  taking  possession  of 
New  Orleans  either  by  bargain  or  by  battle.  All  of  our  terri- 
tory lying  beyond  the  Alleghanies,  north  and  south,  was  first 
won  for  us  by  the  Southwesterners,  fighting  for  their  own 
land. 

So  far  Mr.  Roosevelt. 

When  Mr.  Jefferson  finally  made  the  Louisiana 
purchase  in  1803,  the  Hon.  Josiah  Quincy,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, declared  that  it  was  a  just  cause  for  the  se- 
cession of  the  Eastern  States,  as  it  was  sure  to  disturb 
the  balance  of  power  in  the  Union  by  leading  to  the 
formation  of  at  least  five  or  six  new  commonwealths. 
Exactly ! 

To  quote  Fiske  once  more : 

It  was  James  Madison  on  whom  the  leading  part  of  the 
Federal  Convention  fell — a  young  man  somewhat  less  brilliant 
than  Hamilton,  but  superior  to  him  in  sobriety  and  balance  of 
powers.  He  used  to  be  called  the  "Father  of  the  Constitution," 
and  it  is  true  that  the  government  under  which  we  live  is  more 
his  work  than  that  of  any  other  man. 

It  was  John  Marshall  whom  the  same  writer  declares 
to  be  "second  to  none  among  all  the  illustrious  jurists 
of  the  English  race,"  and  of  whom  he  adds :  "The 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     55 

practical  working  of  our  Federal  Constitution  during 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
saved  to  so  great  an  extent  by  his  profound  and  lumi- 
nous decisions  that  he  must  be  assigned  a  foremost 
place  among  the  founders  of  the  Federal  Union." 

In  all  our  later  struggles  the  South  has  never  once 
failed  to  show  her  hand.  The  annalists  are  agreed  that 
as  a  nation  we  did  not  get  much  honor,  except  on  the 
sea,  out  of  our  second  war  with  Great  Britain  until  the 
time  came  for  "Old  Hickory"  with  his  ragged  battal- 
ions of  Tennesseeans  and  Kentuckians  to  smite  the  Pe- 
ninsular veterans  of  Wellington  at  New  Orleans  and 
win  a  victory  the  like  of  which  is  not  found  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  There  has  been  much  talk  lately 
about  the  amazing  mobility  of  the  Boers  in  South  Af- 
rica by  those  who  have  forgotten,  if  they  ever  knew, 
that  General  Coffee  and  two  regiments  of  mounted 
Tennessee  riflemen  in  December,  1814,  marched  one 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  miles  in  two  days  in  order  to 
reenforce  the  slender  garrison  with  which  Jackson  was 
holding  at  bay  the  invading  forces  under  Pakenham. 

Of  the  conflicts  that  brought  us  Texas  and  the  great 
States  of  the  Pacific  Slope,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak, 
as  the  record  is  read  of  all  men.  As  to  the  life-and- 
death  wrestle  of  1861-65,  everybody  ought  now  to  be 
dispassionate  enough  to  see  that  it  was  inevitable,  and 
that,  though  it  put  the  fate  of  the  republic  in  jeopardy, 
it  furnished  on  both  sides  abundant  illustrations  of 
even-thing  that  is  most  glorious  in  human  character. 
The  South  is  not  ashamed  of  her  600,000  sons  who 
"bore  bayonets  against  destiny"  as  Confederate  sol- 
diers, nor  will  she  admit  that  the  cilivization  was  ready 


56  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

to  decay  that  could  furnish  such  commanders  as  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston,  Stonewall  Jackson,  and  Robert  E.  Lee 
for  this  grim  fighting  host.  But  there  is  something 
often  lost  sight  of  that  I  may  venture  to  call  to  your 
attention :  the  Southern  States  were  not  solidly  on  one 
side.  They  sent,  in  round  numbers,  400,000  white  men 
into  the  Union  army,  and  among  them  such  capable 
captains  as  George  H.  Thomas,  "the  Rock  of  Chicka- 
mauga,"  and  David  Farragut,  the  hero  of  Mobile  Bay. 
Nay,  one  of  them  out  of  the  mighty  loins  of  her  com- 
mon stock  bred  the  Titanic  figure  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
whose  most  famous  political  canvass  was  made  against 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  son  of  New  England.  My  own 
State  of  Tennessee,  on  whose  soil  four  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  battles  and  skirmishes  were  fought,  was 
literally  rent  asunder  by  the  diverging  convictions  of 
its  citizens.  The  Congressional  district  in  which  I  was 
reared,  after  raising  six  or  eight  picked  regiments  of 
Confederates,  then  furnished  more  volunteers  (not  a 
drafted  man  among  them)  for  the  Federal  army  than 
any  other  Congressional  district  in  the  United  States. 

You  cannot  forget  that  in  the  brief  tussle  with  Spain 
the  first  victim  was  Worth  Bagley,  in  whose  patrician 
veins  ran  the  best  blood  of  the  "Old  North  State ;"  nor 
that  the  man  who  boldly  pushed  his  way  through  the 
Cuban  jungle  into  the  Spanish  lines  at  Santiago  and 
made  sure  of  the  presence  of  the  ships  of  Cervera  in 
the  inner  bay  was  Victor  Blue,  of  South  Carolina ;  nor 
that  the  man  who  performed  the  coolest  act  in  naval 
warfare  by  sailing  the  Merrimac  into  the  jaws  of  death 
and  blowing  her  up  with  dynamite  was  Richmond  Pear- 
son Hobson,  of  Alabama;  nor  that  the  gray-headed 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    57 

veteran  who,  though  burning  up  with  Cuban  fever, 
abandoned  his  ambulance  and  rode  to  the  firing  line  on 
horseback,  and  who  stoutly  resisted  every  suggestion  of 
retreat,  was  Joseph  Wheeler — of  the  United  States. 
But  enough  of  this. 

4.  If  behind  us  there  is  a  common  history,  before  us 
there  lies  a  common  destiny  with  its  common  perils. 
We  are  all  in  the  same  boat.  If  that  thought  could  only 
sink  deeply  enough  into  our  minds,  it  would  at  once 
save  us  from  the  petty  squabblings  which  are  a  dis- 
grace to  our  humanity  and  a  sin  against  God.  What  of 
the  future?  As  our  vision  sweeps  forward  to  the  ut- 
most edge  of  the  horizon,  is  everything  perfectly  clear  ? 
Or  do  storm  signals  show  themselves  here  and  there  ? 
He  must  be  blind  indeed  who  does  not  see  that  there 
are  breakers  ahead,  and  that  there  is  need  for  the  best 
seamanship  if  we  expect  to  weather  the  gale  and  reach 
the  port  without  loss  or  danger  to  cargo  and  crew.  To 
abandon  the  figure  and  drop  down  to  literal  speech, 
what  are  some  of  the  dangers  that  beset  us  so  threaten- 
ingly at  the  present  time  ? 

( i )  First  of  all,  there  is  a  widespread  infidelity  pen- 
etrating and  poisoning  the  very  atmosphere  that  we 
breathe  and  insensibly  towjejing  the  victorious  tone  of. 
religious  faith.  Sometimes  it  takes  on  the  form  of  a 
scientific  negationalism,  denying  the  existence  of  a 
personal  God — at  once  immanent  and  transcendent — 
and  putting  in  his  place  either  the  caput  mortuum  of 
blind  Force  or  that  icy  ghost  of  Deity,  "a  stream  of 
tendency  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness," 
as  if  anything  but  an  intelligent  and  self-determining 
thinker  could  possibly  have  created  a  universe  which 


58  'Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

only  intelligent  thought  is  able  to  construe.  Some- 
times it  assumes  the  shape  of  historical  skepticism, 
subjecting  the  documentary  records  of  religion  to  a 
hard  and  pitiless  dissection  which,  if  universally  fol- 
lowed, would  cancel  all  satisfactory  knowledge  of  past 
events  and  leave  us  quite  uncertain  as  to  whether  we 
have  any  solid  ground  of  fact  on  which  to  plant 
the  soles  of  our  feet,  and  yet  seeking  to  console  us 
with  the  delusive  assurance  that,  though  the  New 
Testament  be  taken  away  from  us,  we  still  have  the 
Christ  left.  Let  there  be  no  misunderstanding  here. 
If  the  four  gospels  are  not  substantially  true,  then  we 
are  building  on  sand.  The  cry  o<f  "Back  to  Christ !" 
may  itself  be  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  The  only  Christ 
to  whom  it  is  worth  while  to  go  back  is  not  the  Christ 
of  unaccredited  tradition,  nor  yet  that  floating  phan- 
tom, the  so-called  Christ  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness, but  the  homely  and  familiar  Christ  who  was_ 
born  in  a  manger,  died  on  the  cross,  rose  in  majesty 
from  the  sepulcher,  and  ascended  to  the  right  hand  of 
God.  Schpjarship  has  its  rights,  but  it  must  be  rever- 
ent as  well  as  learned.  You  may  not  dogmatically  re- 
quire it  to  labor  in  the  interest  of  preconceived  opin- 
ions ;  but  you  may  require  that  it  shall  not  rudely  dis- 
turb the  great  pieties  of  the  world  by  setting  forth 
incomplete  and  unverified  theories  as  if  they  had  the_ 
authority  of  final  conclusions,  and  you  may  insist  that 
jt^  prosecute  all  its  investigations  not  in  tlie  temper  of__ 
the  forum  or  the  market  place  but  in  the  temper  of  the_ 
closet  and.  the  sanctuary. 

(2)  There  is  an  immense  amount  of  gross  practical 
materialism  which  is  not  thoughtful  enough  to  frame 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    59 

a  definite  creed,  but  which,  nevertheless,  acts  upon  the 
assumed  belief  that  the  chief  end  of  man  is  not  to 
"glorify  God  and  enjoy  him  forever,"  but  to  heap  up 
vast  riches  by  fair  means  or  foul  and  to  revel  in  the 
luxury  which  such  riches  can  command.  The  mad 
desire  for  wealth  in  these  United  States  is  an  unpar- 
alelled  phenomenon.  Already  it  has  done  incalculable 
harm;  and  in  the  future,  unless  it  is  checked  and 
stayed,  it  may  work  our  ruin.  Not  satisfied  with 
gains  that  two  generations  ago  would  have  seemed  in- 
credible, it  is  perpetually  clamoring  for  more.  Enter- 
ing into  trusts  and  combines,  it  crushes  out  competi- 
tion, destroys  the  small  producer  or  holds  him  as  a 
victim  at  its  pleasure,  limits  the  output  of  furnaces  and 
factories  to  suit  its  own  advantage  without  any  regard 
for  the  public  welfare,  swings  its  whip  over  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  common  toiler  and  enforces  his  absolute 
obedience  by  the  threat  of  starvation  for  himself  and 
family,  and  with  boundless  rapacity  and  unabashed 
impudence  forces  its  way  into  the  halls  of  Congress 
and  solicits  gifts  and  subsidies  from  the  public  treas- 
ury. There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  more  pleasing  side  to  the 
picture.  Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  were 
there  so  many  rich  men  who  were  also  rich  toward 
God,  spending  their  millions  for  schools  and  colleges, 
for  libraries  and  hospitals,  for  open  parks  and  pleasure 
grounds,  for  Churches  and  missions.  But  this  fact, 
while  it  mitigates  the  evils  of  the  existing  conditions, 
does  not  in  any  way  abate  the  need  of  wide  remedial 
measures.  Capital  must  be  taught  its  duties,  and 
where  it  will  not  voluntarily  learn  them  must  be 
forced  into  line  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law.  Nor 


60  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

less  must  labor  be  instructed  that,  while  it  may  properly 
organize  for  worthy  ends,  it  has  everything  to  lose  and 
nothing  to  gain  by  repudiating  religion,  trampling  on 
law,  and  seeking  to  secure  its  ends  by  methods  that 
are  abhorrent  to  right  reason  and  a  menace  to  the 
peace  and  permanency  of  society. 

(3)  Certain  particular  forms  of  business  which  are 
not  merely  capable  of  abuse  but  are  positively  evil  in 
themselves  have  secured  such  a  standing  before  the 
law,  and  such  a  patronage  from  all  classes  of  citizens 
as  makes  them  more  to  be  dreaded  than  pestilence  or 
earthquake.  Chief  of  these  is  the  liquor  traffic.  Itjs 
wholly  and  incurably  bad.  Society  could  better  afford 
to  license  at  every  street  corner  a^  den  of  cobras  than 
to  give  its  sanction  to  the  indiscriminate  sale  of  strong 
drink.  The  open  saloon  is  a  breathing  hole  of  hell. 
IF  thrusts  temptation  into  the  very  faces  of  the  inex- 
perienced and  the  unwary  and  operates  day  and  night 
as  a  manufactory  of  drunkards.  The  gambling  hell 
and  the  brothel  are  its  almost  invariable  accompani- 
ments. Very  often,  also,  it  is  a  center  of  political  pow- 
er, part  of  that  machine  which  sometimes  under  the 
name  of  one  party  and  sometimes  under  the  name  of 
another  fills  the  offices  and  controls  the  revenues  of 
our  municipalities.  Always  organized,  always  at  work, 
without  scruple,  without  honor,  it  counts  for  more  in 
the  election  of  mayors  and  aldermen  than  the  intelli- 
gence, decency,  and  piety  of  the  larger  cities  combined. 
Set  up  by  the  extrajudicial  defiance  of  an  express  stat- 
ute in  our  regular  and  volunteer  armies,  it  is  slaying 
more  of  our  young  men  than  the  bullets  of  their  ene- 
mies and  ^ruining  the  characters  and  blasting  the  hopes 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.    61 

of  thousands  besides.  We  jrrnst  pjitjt  dowji,  or  it  will 
guj  us  down.  The  abolition  of  this  national  evil  can- 
not be  effected  by  fanatical  means.  What  is  needed  in 
opposing  it  is^  perfect  sanity  combined  with  undying 
determination.  Let  not  those  of  us  who  are  enlisted 
for  the  war  fall  into  the  inexcusable  folly  of  denounc- 
ing and  vilifying  one  another.  Whoever  is  willing  to 
help  in  any  way  ought  to  be  welcomed  as  an  ally,  and 
not  treated  as  an  enemy  simply  because  he  cannot  pro- 
nounce our  shibboleths.  We  are  all  aiming  at  the 
same  end.  In  some  sections  it  may  best  be  accom- 
plished by  one  policy,  and  in  others  by  another.  I  am 
warranted  in  saying  that  but  for  the  horde  of  ignorant 
and  purchasable  voters  who  are  sometimes  corralled 
into  droves  of  five  hundred  and  marched  to  the  polls 
like  so  many  cattle  the  doggeries  could  be  closed  in 
every  Southern  State  to-morrow.  Even  as  it  is,  by  far 
the  larger  part  of  our  territory  is  already  under  some 
form  of  prohibition,  and  the  battle  goes  bravely  on. 

(4)  There  is  reason  to  fear  that  we  are  suffering 
from  a  serious  decay  in  the  purity  of  family  life.  The 
Christian  doctrine  that  marriage  is  the  union  of  one 
man  and  one  woman  for  life,  indissoluble  except  for  the 
one  cause  that  defeats  its  very  end  and  design,  is  not 
held  in  such  honor  as  it  once  was.  The  records  of  our 
divorce  courts  are  a  burning  shame.  Worst  of  all,  it 
is  not  solely  nor  even  chiefly  among  the  lowly  and  the 
ignorant  that  the  disregard  for  the  sanctities  of  the 
marriage  bond  is  found.  Among  the  very  richest  of 
the  land  occurrences  of  recent  years  have  disclosed  a 
state  of  sexual  morality  that  would  scandalize  a  Hot- 
tentot and  put  an  Australian  Bushman  to  the  blush. 


62  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

Vice  is  none  the  less  hideous  when  it  arrays  itself  in 
purple  and  fine  linen,  feeds  on  crystallized  violets,  and 
seeks  to  redeem  its  loathesomeness  by  the  charm  of 
accomplished  manners.  We  must  guard  our  homes. \ 
Blessed  be  God  for  the  thousand  sweet  and  beautiful  i 
households  in  crowded  cities  and  quiet  villages  and 
remote  country  places,  watched  over  by  the  holy  angels  ; 
of  peace  and  love,  and  into  which  the  base  satanic  no- / 
tions  of  this  wicked  world  find  no  entrance ! 
"  (5)  It  must  be  allowed  that  many  indications  show 
an  increasing  lack  of  respect  for  law  and  order.  The 
strong  often  defy  it  and  trample  it  under  foot  with 
contemptuous  indifference,  and  the  weak  evade  its  ob- 
ligations by  all  sorts  of  cunning  schemes.  This  tend- 
ency must  be  corrected,  else  we  shall  presently  feel 
the  very  foundations  rocking  and  swaying  beneath 
us.  That  awful  enormity,  the  mob,  is  only  a  symptom. 
Though  sometimes  it  may  be  the  uprising  of  an  out- 
raged community,  yet  usually  it  is  the  self-assertion 
of  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort.  Under  no  circum- 
stances can  it  be  defended,  justified,  or  tolerated. 
^Society  goes  to  pieces  in  the  very  day  in  which  courts 
and  juries  become  too  corrupt  or^  too^  feeble  to  §3-T 
minister  justice  or  surrender  their  functions  into  the. 
hands  of  the  rabble.  A  clarified  public  opinion,  rising 
up  in  its  might,  must  demand  that  the  judiciary  and 
the  executive  branches  of  the  government  exercise 
their  authority  with  such  impartiality,  fairness,  up- 
rightness, and  courage  as  to  take  away  the  last  excuse 
for  irregular  and  illegal  methods  of  punishment.  The 
broad  shield  of  the  law  must  be  thrown  over  the  prop- 
erty and  person  of  every  citizen  in  the  land,  from  the 


Salutations  to  Our  Twin  Sister  of  the  North.     63 

humblest  negro  that  plows  his  blind  mule  in  the  Black 
Belt  of  Alabama  to  the  proudest  millionaire  that  rides 
in  his  automobile  down  Michigan  Avenue;  and  from 
every  class,  too,  there  must  be  exacted  that  unques- 
tioning and  absolute  obedience  which  the  dictates  of 
common  sense  and  the  higher  motives  of  patriotism 
alike  require. 

(6)  But  our  chief  danger,  after  all,  is  to  be  looked 
for  not  outside  but  inside  the  Churches.  I  am  not 
going  to  indulge  in  railing  accusations,  nor  to  intimate 
that  organized  Christianity  throughout  the  world  is  in 
a  condition  of  total  or  partial  apostasy  from  Jesus 
Christ,  for  1^  do  not  believe  any  such  thing  to  be  the 
case.  Since  the  day  when  the  Lord  of  glory,  "who  liv- 
eth,  and  was  dead,  and  behold  he  is  alive  for  evermore," 
ascended  to  the  height  of  his  mediatorial  throne,  there 
has  never  been  a  time  when  a  larger  percentage  of  his 
disciples  diligently  endeavored  to  adjust  their  lives  to 
the  pattern  presented  in  his  teaching  than  now.  The 
world  contains  a  multitude  of  faithful  souls  which  no 
man  can  number  and  who  walk  before  God  in  unspot- 
ted garments.  But  there  is  also,  as  there  has  ever  been, 
an  immense  company  of  merely  nominal  Christians  who 
have  only  a  name  to  live  while  they  are  really  dead. 
To  thrust  them  forth  from  the  Church  is  to  give  them 
over  finally  to  the  devil.  We  must  care  for  them  as 
well  as  we  can,  bearing  with  them  as  long  as  they  do 
not  fall  into  flagrant  sins,  and  even  then  exercising 
discipline  with  that  tender  charity  which  "hopeth  all 
things,  believeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things,  and 
thinketh  no  evil."  It  is  true  that  they  add  little  or 
nothing  to  our  fighting  strength,  and  sometimes  they 


64  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

are  a  positive  hindrance  to  great  achievements.    What 
shall  we  do  ?    There  is  only  one  answer.    By  all  possi- 
ble means  we  must  stimulate  and  quicken  the  general 
life  of  the  Church  till  every  individual  member  shall 
feel  its  vibrant  pulsations.    There  is  no  magical  way  of 
curing  the  prevailing  ills.     Ecclesiastical  enactments 
cannot  do  it.    Worldliness  is  subtle,  elusive,  persistent. 
It  laughs  at  the  most  stringent  statutes  that  are  framed 
to  suppress  it  and  slips  like  an  invisible  spirit  through 
the  finest  meshes  of  prohibitory  legislation.    Our  only] 
resource  is  to  fall  back  upon  the  simple  directions  of/ 
the  gospel.     What  we  need  is  a  return  to  the  old' 
paths,  to  the  devouter  study  of  the  Scriptures,  to  the' 
habit  of  intense  and  fervent  private  prayer,  to  the 
observance  of  family  worship,  to  a  more  diligent  at- 
tendance upon  all  public  means. 


III. 

A  MESSAGE  TO  THE  MOTHER  CHURCH  OF 
METHODISM. 

5 


"For  by  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether 
we  be  Jews  or-  Gentiles,  whether  we  be  bond  or  free ;  and  have 
been  all  made  to  drink  into  one  Spirit."  (i  Cor.  xii.  -13.) 


A  MESSAGE  TO  THE  MOTHER  CHURCH  OF 
METHODISM. 

[Fraternal  address  delivered  before  the  British  Wesleyan 
Conference,  Sheffield,  England,  1903.] 

Mr.  President,  Venerable  Fathers  of  the  Platform, 
and  Brethren  of  the  Conference:  The  reading  of  my 
credentials,  to  which  you  have  just  listened,  makes  it 
almost  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  that  I  am  come  to 
you  as  the  official  bearer  of  fraternal  salutations  from 
the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South.  But  I  cannot  forbear  to  add  that  I 
count  it  a  distinguished  honor  to  have  been  sent  on 
such  an  errand,  and  that  I  am  deeply  regretful  of  my 
inability  to  discharge  its  obligations  in  a  thoroughly 
becoming  manner.  Nevertheless  I  draw  much  com- 
fort from  the  settled  conviction  that  I  am  in  the  house 
of  my  friends,  and  that  I  may  safely  look  for  a  lenient 
and  generous  judgment  at  your  hands  upon  whatever 
defects  may  appear  either  in  the  substance  of  my  mes- 
sage or  in  the  form  of  its  utterance.  Reenforced  by 
this  conviction,  I  shall  venture  to  speak  without  reserve 
the  things  that  are  in  my  heart.  Bred  as  I  was  among 
a  people  who  hold  to  the  creed  that  sincerity  is  the 
first  elernent  in  all  true  manhood,  I  should  be  ashamed 
to  go  back  and  face  the  great  constituency  that  has 
commissioned  me  hither  if  I  could  so  far  forget  my- 
self as  to  be  otherwise  than  frank  and  open  in  your 
presence. 

It  is  barely  possible  that  in  trying1  to  be  explicit  I 

Wflfe 


68  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

shall  fall  into  collision  with  some  of  your  prejudices 
and  prepossessions.  Nothing  is  farther  from  my 
wishes,  however,  than  a  catastrophe  of  that  sort.  For 
a  vague  and  shadowy  rumor  which  may  have  no  basis 
in  reality  has  reached  my  ears  to  the  effect  that  it  is 
not  altogether  safe  to  stir  up  the  latent  belligerency  of 
your  natures.  And  even  if  the  shadow  of  this  appre- 
hension were  not  upon  me,  I  am  still  committed  to  the 
doctrine  that  gentle  courtesy  consorts  well  with  out- 
spoken candor,  and  that  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  be 
rude  in  order  to  be  honest. 

It  is  my  first  duty,  Mr.  President,  and  not  my  least 
pleasant  one,  to  thank  you  for  the  men  of  light  and 
leading  whom  you  have  from  time  to  time  sent  to  our 
General  Conference.  The  last  of  these,  Rev.  F.  L. 
Wiseman,  was  present  with  us  at  Dallas/  Tex.,  two 
years  ago.  No  man  more  alert  in  mind,  more  facile  in 
speech,  and  more  genial  in  manner  has  ever  stood 
upon  our  platform.  He  came  and  saw  and  conquered. 
If  he  did  not  bring  off  as  booty  everything  that  was  in 
sight,  it  was  simply  because  he  was  too  magnanimous 
to  take  advantage  of  his  opportunity.  He  certainly 
brought  our  respect,  our  admiration,  and  our  brotherly 
love.  The  worthy  gentlemen  who  preceded  him  have 
both  been  since  elected  to  the  presidency  of  this  Con- 
ference, and  we  take  it  for  granted  that  he  too  is  set 
down,  if  not  in  the  book  of  fate,  at  least  in  the  unpub- 
lished Agenda,  to  go  the  same  way.  Our  next  General 
Conference,  Mr.  President,  is  to  meet  in  May,  1906, 
at  Birmingham,  Ala.,  in  the  heart  of  the  coal  and  iron 
Industrie^  of  the  South  and  in  the  midst  of  an  intelli- 
gent and  progressive  Methodist  population.  We  shall 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  69 

hope  to  receive  from  you  at  that  time  a  representative 
of  like  quality  with  those  that  have  gone  before.  With- 
out the  slightest  hesitancy  I  feel  authorized  to  promise 
him  in  this  public  way  a  reception  quite  warm  enough 
to  meet  his  most  sanguine  expectations.  The  ther- 
mometer will  probably  stand  at  about  ninety  degrees 
Fahrenheit,  and  the  temperature  of  our  hearts  will 
register  an  equal  level. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  as  a  sort  of  prophylactic 
against  possible  misapprehensions,  let  me  state  in  the 
most  definite  possible  terms  that  from  my  heart's  core 
out  to  my  finger  tips  and  in  every  fiber  of  my  being  I 
am  an  American,  loving  with  a  passionate  affection 
every  foot  of  soil  in  the  great  republic,  and  reverencing 
more  than  any  poor  words  of  mine  can  possibly  express 
the  starry  flag  which  is  the  outward  and  visible  symbol 
of  its  authority.  At  the  same  time,  seeing  that  I  am 
from  the  South  and  that  I  belong  to  a  Church  which 
unhesitatingly  publishes  in  its  very  name  the  geograph- 
ical  sphere  of  its  operations,  I  shall  offer  no  apology 
for  confining  myself  chiefly  to  the  discussion  of  affairs 
in  that  particular  part  of  the  United  States. 

Am  I  wrong  in  supposing  that  your  judgment  in 
regard  to  the  South  has  been  made  up  in  large  part  on 
the  testimony  of  those  who,  to  put  it  mildly,  held  no 
brief  in  our  behalf?  At  any  rate,  as  it  appears  to  us, 
the  majority  of  those  who  have  spoken  and  written 
about  us  have  hardly  set  us  in  a  fair  light  before  the 
world.  That  we  are  a  little  sensitive  in  regard  to  our 
reputation  is  no  doubt  true,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  con- 
sidered a  fault  that  we  cherish  a  just  regard  for  the 
opinions  of  mankind.  To  give  a  concrete  example  of 


70  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

what  I  mean,  let  me  say  that  not  a  great  while  ago  I 
reread,  after  seeing  it  indorsed  in  the  stately  columns 
of  the  Spectator  as  of  unimpeachable  authority,  Prof. 
Goldwin  Smith's  "History  of  the  United  States." 
But  this  second  reading  served  only  to  fortify  the 
conclusion  which  I  had  reached  about  the  book  some 
years  ago — namely,  that,  though  written  in  exasperat- 
ingly  good  English,  it  is  as  perfect  a  mixture  of  crude 
ignorance  and  Pharisaical  malignity  as  the  literature 
of  our  common  tongue  can  show.  What  Professor 
Smith  has  to  say  about  the  South  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  single  sentence  something  like  this:  That  but  for 
its  political  connection  with  tHe  more  intelligent  and 
progressive  North,  it  would  long  ago  have  drifted  back 
into  a  state  of  fossilized  semibarbarism.  "Ye  shall 
know  them  by  their  fruits.  Do  men  gather  gra'pes  of 
thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles?"  To  this  test  and  adjudi- 
cation we  are  willing  to  submit  without  a  murmur. 
Professor  Smith  himself  was  never  in  the  South.  He 
is  not,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  speak  from  personal 
observation.  But  the  record  of  the  facts  is  writ  large 
in  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  so  is  open  to  the  inspection 
of  all  honest  and  fair-minded  students.  If  anything 
in  human  annals  is  susceptible  of  proof,  it  is  this :  that 
the  men  of  the  South,  from  the  beginning  of  the  colo- 
nial days  down  to  the  present  time,  have  contributed 
their  full  share  to  the  prosperity  and  the  glory  of  their 
country. 

From  the  South  came  George  Washington,  pater 
patriae,  whom  the  Methodist  Times  insists  on  class- 
ing with  the  Puritans,  but  who  was  really  a  Cavalier 
in  every  drop  of  his  blood,  a  sort  of  transfigured  and 


'A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  71 

glorified  English  country  gentleman  whose  nature  had 
been  broadened  by  the  ample  spaces  and  the  liberal  at- 
mosphere of  the  New  World,  of  whom  John  Richard 
Green  truly  says  that  "no  nobler  figure  ever  stood  in 
the  forefront  of  a  nation's  life,"  and  who  was  so 
unassailably  great  that  not  even  gruff  old  Thomas 
Carlyle,  advocatus  diaboli  as  he  was,  could  fulfill  his 
promise  to  "take  George  down  a  peg  or  two ;"  Patrick 
Henry,  the  supreme  orator  of  the  Revolutionary  era, 
not  an  ignorant  and  briefless  barrister  as  prejudice  has 
painted  him,  but  a  diligent  reader  of  great  books  and 
a  thinker  who  grappled  the  law  and  the  reasons  of  it 
with  the  unrelaxing  vigor  of  a  giant ;  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, the  author  at  thirty-three  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  later  of  the  Statute  for  Religious 
Freedom  in  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  by  far  the  most 
erudite  and  versatile  of  all  our  Presidents ;  James  Mad- 
ison, "the  father  of  the  Constitution,"  a  publicist  whose 
knowledge  ranged  broadly  and  deeply  over  the  whole 
field  of  history;  John  Marshall,  the  great  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  the  Supreme  Court,  who  dwarfs  all  his  suc- 
cessors in  comparison,  and  by  whom  more  than  by  any 
other  one  man  the  written  Constitution  was  converted 
from  a  tentative  theory  into  an  actual  working  plan  of 
government ;  Andrew  Jackson,  son  of  a  Carrickfergus 
immigrant,  whose  brilliant  victory  at  New  Orleans  on 
January  8,  1815,  almost  the  only  substantial  land  vic- 
tory that  we  gained  in  that  miserable  war,  made  it 
certain  that  thereafter  nobody  would  venture  in  times 
of  peace  to  search  an  American  ship  on  the  high  seas ; 
and  in  later  years,  when  unhappy  civil  discords  issued 
in  a  gigantic  war  between  the  States,  Robert  E.  Lee 


72  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

and  Stonewall  Jackson,  those  Christian  knights  with- 
out fear  and  without  reproach,  who  may  be  held  up  in 
the  face  of  all  the  world  with  the  deliberate  challenge 
to  produce  their  like.  Quite  recently  I  have  gone 
through  the  autobiography  of  Field  Marshal  Lord 
Garnet  Wolseley,  who  as  a  young  British  officer  spent 
some  weeks  in  1862  in  General  Lee's  camp.  Speaking 
of  General  Lee,  he  says : 

He  was  the  ablest  general  and,  to  me,  seemed  the  greatest 
man  that  I  ever  conversed  with ;  and  yet  I  have  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  meeting  Von  Moltke  and  Prince  Bismarck,  and  upon 
one  occasion  had  a  very  long  and  interesting  conversation  with 
the  latter.  General  Lee  was  one  of  the  few  men  that  ever 
seriously  impressed  and  awed  me  with  their  natural,  their 
inherent  greatness.  His  greatness  made  me  humble,  and  I 
never  felt  my  own  individual  insignificance  more  keenly  than 
in  his  presence.  He  was  indeed  a  beautiful  character, 'and  of 
him  it  might  truthfully  be  written,  "In  righteousness  he  did 
judge  and  make  war." 

Of  Stonewall  Jackson,  General  Wolseley  adds: 

What  a  hero !  And  yet  how  simple,  how  humble-minded  a 
man !  In  manner  he  was  different  from  General  Lee,  and  I 
can  class  him  with  no  man  that  I  have  ever  met  or  read  of  in 
history.  Like  the  great  commander  whom  he  served  with 
such  knightly  loyalty,  he  was  deeply  religious,  but  more  aus- 
tere, more  Puritan  in  type.  Both  were  great  soldiers,  yet 
neither  had  any  Gothlike  delight  in  war. 

These  succinct  and  comprehensive  eulogies  are  elab- 
orated at  great  length  by  the  late  Colonel  Henderson, 
of  your  army,  in  his  judicious,  painstaking,  and  careful 
work  on  "Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  American  Civil 
War."  Even  Mr.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  President  of 
the  United  States,  does  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  73 
i 

"General  Lee  was  unquestionably  the  greatest  of  all 
the  great  soldiers  that  have  been  produced  by  our 
English-speaking  race,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
his  last  and  greatest  antagonist,  General  Grant,  may 
himself  claim  to  rank  with  Marlborotigh  and  Welling- 
ton." These  men  and  a  multitude  like  them  who  of 
acknowledged  right  sat  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty  did 
not  come  by  accident.  On  the  contrary,  they  grew  by 
normal  processes  out  of  the  social,  civil,  and  religious 
conditions  in  which  they  were  born;  and  they  were 
fairly  representative  and  exponential  of  the  people  to 
whom  they  belonged — a  people  not  without  serious  and 
regrettable  faults  and  failings,  yet  fit  on  the  whole  to 
claim  kinship  with  their  English-speaking  brethren  in 
every  part  of  the  globe;  conservative  in  all  their  in- 
stincts and  convinced  that  true  and  permanent  progress 
must  come,  not  by  cataclysmal  fits  and  starts,  but  by 
that  slow  and  orderly  evolution  of  society  in  which 
liberty  "broadens  down  from  precedent  to  precedent ;" 
caring  little  for  great  wealth  and  nothing  at  all  for  the 
vulgar  and  ostentatious  luxury  that  goes  along  with 
it,  but  aiming  at  homely  comfort  and  finding  intense 
delight  in  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  competent 
means;  free  from  the  hypocrisy  of  a  merely  formal 
politeness  on  the  one  hand  and  from  unsocial  incivility 
on  the  other ;  not  particularly  solicitous  to  enlarge  the 
range  of  their  close  acquaintance,  but  still  gracious  to 
all  strangers;  maintaining  a  kindly  and  tolerant  atti- 
tude toward  their  dependents,  a  self-respecting  but 
courteous  deportment  toward  their  equals,  and  more 
than  a  little  skeptical  as  to  the  existence  of  any  class 
anywhere  that  might  rightfully  claim  to  be  their  su- 


74  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

periors ;  loving  their  own  homes  and  families  with  a 
passionate  devotion,  keenly  sensitive  as  to  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  blood  bond  between  themselves  and  their 
closer  or  more  distant  kinsmen,  and  patriotically  at- 
tached to  their  whole  country ;  holding  their  heads  erect 
and  unafraid  in  the  presence  of  men,  spontaneously  def- 
erential to  women,  and  bowing  with  an  unquestioning 
faith  before  the  Majesty  of  the  Eternal.  Such,  in  brief, 
they  were;  and  such,  despite  the  transforming  influ- 
ences of  these  commercial  days,  they  still  are  in  the 
warp  and  woof  of  their  being. 

"With  ardent  hearts  and  ever-open  hands, 

Candid  and  honest,  brave  and  proud  they  grew, 
Their  lives  and  habits  colored  by  fair  hands, 
As  clouds  give  waters  hue." 

May  I  quote  once  more  and  this  time  from  Senator 
Hoar,  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  cleanest  and  ablest 
of  our  modern  statesmen  ?  He  says : 

My  life,  politically  and  personally,  has  been  a  life  of  almost 
constant  strife  with  the  leaders  of  the  Southern  people,  yet  as 
I  grow  older  I  have  learned  not  only  to  respect  and  esteem 
but  to  love  the  great  qualities  which  belong  to  my  fellow 
citizens  of  the  Southern  States.  They  are  a  noble  race.  We 
may  well  pattern  from  them  in  some  of  the  great  virtues 
which  make  up  the  strength  as  they  make  the  glory  of  free 
States.  Their  love  of  home,  their  chivalrous  respect  for 
woman,  their  courage,  their  delicate  sense  of  honor,  their  con- 
stancy, which  can  abide  by  an  opinion  or  a  purpose  or  an 
interest  of  their  States  through  adversity  and  through  the 
years  and  through  the  generations,  are  things  from  which  the 
people  of  the  more  material  North  may  take  a  lesson.  And 
there  is  another  thing:  covetousness,  corruption,  the  low 
temptation  ^oi  money  has  not  yet  found  any  place  in  your 
Southern  politics. 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  75 

It  was  in  such  a  soil  as  this,  Mr.  President,  that 
Methodism  had  its  original  and  most  congenial  home 
in  America.  Even  were  it  true — and  I  do  not  believe 
it  to  be  true — that  the  first  New  World  congregation 
of  Methodists  was  organized  in  John  Street,  New 
York,  the  undeniable  fact  remains  that  Maryland  and 
Virginia  soon  became  the  strongholds  and  the  radiating 
centers  of  its  power.  The  first  American  bishop,  Wil- 
liam McKendree,  was  a  Virginian  who  had  been  an 
officer  in  the  Revolutionary  army  and  had  the  militant 
temper  in  his  blood,  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ, 
possessing  all  the  holy  fervor  and  untiring  zeal  of 
Francis  Asbury,  with  a  natural  breadth  of  view  and  a 
faculty  of  constructive  ecclesiastical  statesmanship 
which  Asbury  did  not  possess.  Most  of  the  bishops 
and  a  full  proportion  of  the  leaders  and  preachers  of 
that  period  came  from  the  same  quarter.  In  the  un- 
divided American  Methodism  the  South  always  fur- 
nished a  due  share  of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  force 
and  did  an  honorable  part  of  the  work. 

Our  itinerants,  obedient  to  the  law  which  sent  them, 
not  where  they  most  preferred  to  go,  but  where  they 
were  most  needed,  virtually  covered  the  whole  land 
and  reached  all  classes  of  society  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest.  The  majority  of  them  in  the  beginning 
were  men  of  limited  culture,  and  not  a  few  made  sad 
havoc  of  the  King's  English.  But  there  were  many 
who  in  the  face  of  the  gravest  difficulties  became  sound 
scholars,  able  expositors  of  the  Word  of  God,  and 
convincing  and  persuasive  preachers;  and  now  and 
then  a  man  arose  among  them  with  that  gift  of  splen- 
did eloquence,  that  commanding  and  victorious  speech 


76  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

which  in  every  country  and  in  every  age  fails  not  to 
catch  the  ears  and  charm  the  hearts  of  the  multitude. 
At  one  end  of  the  line  governors,  senators,  congress- 
men, judges,  lawyers,  physicians,  merchants,  and 
planters  heard  the  call  of  the  gospel  by  the  lips  of  these 
consecrated  evangelists  and  heeded  it,  and  at  the  other 
end  the  poorest  and  lowliest  of  the  settlers  in  their  log 
cabins  and  the  masses  of  the  negro  slaves  in  the  cotton 
fields  and  the  rice  swamps  were  led  in  triumph  by 
them  as  captives  of  Christ.  The  result  is  that  through- 
out the  great  stretch  of  territory  below  the  Ohio  and 
the  Potomac  Methodism  is  to-day  the  dominant  type 
of  religion.  In  my  native  State  of  Tennessee  there 
are  more  Methodists  than  there  are  members  of  any 
other  denomination,  Romanist  or  Protestant.  •  Our 
latest  and  best  historian  in  a  well-considered  chapter 
affirms  that  the  Methodist  circuit  riders  actually  cre- 
ated the  civilization  of  the  State.  You  will  be  pleased 
to  learn,  I  am  sure,  that  in  Georgia,  the  colony  of  Ogle- 
thorpe  and  Wesley  and  the  last  of  the  original  thir- 
teen, there  is  scarcely  a  city,  town,  village,  or  country 
community  without  an  effective  Methodist  organiza- 
tion. And  even  in  far-off  Texas,  yet  scarcely  sixty 
years  a  member  of  the  Federal  Union,  there  are  ap- 
proximately 250,000  communicants  in  our  Churches. 
In  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina  and  Kentucky,  in 
the  swamps  of  Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  on  the  fertile 
prairies  of  Missouri,  and  on  the  treeless  plains  of  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona — go  where  you  will,  you  will 
find  them  singing  the  Wesleyan  hymns  and  bearing 
glad  testimony  to  the  blessed  experience  of  salvation 
from  sin.  And  how  strangely  uniform  that  testimony 


'A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  77 

is !    The  sweet  undertone  of  it  is  the  same  beneath  all 
skies. 

Of  the  infinite  toil  and  sacrifice  by  which  these 
achievements  have  been  secured,  I  have  little  time  to 
give  details.  You  know  what  it  costs  to  spread  the 
kingdom  of  God  anywhere,  and  especially  under  the 
difficult  and  exacting  conditions  that  exist  in  a  new 
country  and  among  a  restless,  energetic,  and  self- 
willed  people.  The  men  who  did  it  in  America,  though 
their  names  be  not  blazoned  by  any  historian,  nor  com- 
memorated by  any  orator,  nor  sung  by  any  poet,  nor 
carved  in  marble  by  any  sculptor,  are  entitled  to  be 
reckoned  among  the  true  heroes  of  the  world — "the 
messengers  of  the  Churches  and  the  glory  of  Christ." 
I  speak  the  truth  before  God  and  lie  not  when  I  main- 
tain that  there  is  no  chapter  in  the  records  of  the  uni- 
versal Church  that  more  fitly  deserves  to  be  written  in 
illuminated  letters  than  that  one  which  tells  how  our 
missionaries,  not  by  the  use  of  secular  or  sensational 
methods,  but  by  the  proclamation  of  a  pure  and  un- 
adulterated gospel  transformed  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  besotted  African  pagans  into  Christian  men  and 
women.  The  chief  leader  in  this  great  movement  was 
William  Capers,  of  South  Carolina,  the  first  fraternal 
delegate  from  American  Methodism  to  this  Confer- 
ence. Not  by  his  own  election,  but  by  inexorable 
providence,  he  was  himself  a  Christian  master. 
Though  born  to  wealth  and  social  position,  he  was  smit- 
ten with  an  infinite  compassion,  like  that  of  the  Christ 
himself,  for  the  poor  creatures  whom  the  cupidity  of 
English  and  Yankee  men-stealers  had  brought  to  the 
shores  of  America.  On  the  marble  shaft  which  rises 


78  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

above  his  grave  in  the  capital  of  his  native  State  is  this 
brief  inscription : 

WILLIAM  CAPERS, 

BISHOP  OF  THE  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH,  SOUTH, 
FOUNDER  OF  THE  MISSIONS  TO  THE  SLAVES. 

When  the  Civil  War  began  we  had  hundreds  of 
picked  men  devoting  themselves  exclusively  to  the  task 
of  evangelizing  their  colored  brethren,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  still  larger  number  who  were  giving  a  part  of 
their  time  and  effort  to  the  same  work.  They  consci- 
entiously believed  that  they  could  draw  no  warrant 
from  the  New  Testament  for  stirring  up  a  servile  in- 
surrection, and  they  were  altogether  certain  that  they 
had  no  commission  to  foment  a  crusade  of  reformation 
by  assassination ;  but  with  a  fidelity  that  never  wa- 
vered, though  it  was  hindered  by  many  obstacles  and 
exposed  to  many  sneers,  and  moving  on  the  exact  lines 
laid  down  by  Richard  Watson  in  his  famous  letter  of 
instructions  to  your  own  West  Indian  missionaries, 
they  did  vindicate  the  quality  of  their  motives  by 
bringing  uncounted  thousands  to  the  knowledge  of 
God.  At  the  date  which  I  have  just  mentioned  we  had 
207,000  communicants  of  African  blood,  besides  a  host 
of  probationers  and  Sunday  school  scholars,  the  larg- 
est and,  I  undertake  to  maintain,  the  best  body  of 
converted  heathen  in  all  the  world,  though  our  Baptist 
brethren  were  little  behind  us  in  the  zeal  and  success 
of  their  labors.  Against  all  the  allegations  of  unfaith- 
fulness to  our  trust  which  an  ignorant  fanaticism  has 
thrown  in  our  faces  I  set  these  inexpugnable  facts  and 
figures  and  am  content  to  let  the  case  rest  just  there. 


'A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  79 

That  we  ought  to  have  done  better  I  shall  not  deny, 
and  we  are  perfectly  willing  to  be  reminded  of  it  by 
anybody  that  has  done  better. 

Suffer  me,  Mr.  President,  to  go  a  little  farther  with 
my  chronicle.  The  War  between  the  States,  the  most 
violent  civil  convulsion  of  modern  times,  ended  in  a 
sort  of  universal  upheaval  and  dislocation.  The  South 
was  defeated,  impoverished  beyond  conception,  and 
terribly  humiliated,  but  still  held  an  unexpended  re- 
serve of  spirit  which  was  to  become  the  working  cap- 
ital of  its  future  operations.  Then  came  the  horrors 
of  reconstruction.  The  thing  which  Edmund  Burke 
declared  to  be  impossible  was  actually  done:  an  in- 
dictment was  framed  against  a  whole  people  who, 
without  being  allowed  to  plead,  were  adjudged  guilty 
and  subjected  to  the  most  appalling  penalties.  The 
cruel  and  fatuous  experiment  was  tried  of  putting  a 
race  that  had  more  than  a  millennium  of  English  his- 
tory in  its  blood  under  the  domination  of  a  race  whose 
great-grandfathers  were  Congo  savages.  Taxation 
rose  to  the  limit  of  confiscation.  The  carpetbagger 
and  the  scalawag  went  to  the  chief  places  of  power, 
and  there  followed  a  carnival  of  colossal  stealing. 
Unable  for  a  time  to  help  ourselves,  we  had  no  course 
left  us  but  to  endure  the  infliction  in  dumb  and  patient 
— perhaps  I  ought  to  call  it  impatient — agony. 

But  while  other  leadership  failed  or  stood  in  doubt 
the  Church  rallied  to  her  standards.  One-third  of  her 
total  membership  was  gone,  the  best  of  it  buried  on  the 
battle  field,  and  the  remainder  drifted  away  from  the 
anchorage  of  the  faith.  The  colored  people,  intoxi- 
cated, as  was  natural,  by  their  new  freedom  and  played 


8o  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

upon  by  emissaries  from  without,  deserted  us  within  a 
year  to  the  number  of  150,000,  either  setting  up  for 
themselves  or  else  going  where  there  was  the  promise 
if  not  the  potency  of  abundant  loaves  and  fishes.  It 
was  openly  and  exultantly  published  in  certain  reli- 
gious newspapers  that  we  were  ecclesiastically  dead, 
and  next  of  kin  were  not  lacking  with  an  eager  ap- 
petite for  administering  upon  our  shrunken  estate. 
Prophets  of  evil  said  that  we  should  never  be  able  to 
got  another  General  Conference  together,  and  then 
laid  themselves  out  to  secure  the  fulfillment  of  their 
own  prediction.  When  the  Conference  of  1866  did 
meet,  it  gathered  from  a  desolate  land  and  from 
Churches  every  one  of  which  was  filled  with  widows 
and  orphaned  children.  It  really  looked  as  if  the  end 
had  come.  But  there  were  men  at  the  helm  who  be- 
lieved in  God  and  were  not  afraid.  They  counted  up 
their  numbers,  a  bare  450,000,  and  then,  unrestrained 
by  any  superstition  as  to  a  fixed  and  divinely  authori- 
tative theory  of  ecclesiastical  government,  they  reso- 
lutely set  to  work  and  readjusted  the  machinery  to  suit 
the  changed  conditions  that  had  been  thrust  upon  them. 
To  make  a  long  story  short,  what  has  been  the  out- 
come of  their  courage  ?  The  General  Minutes  for  the 
current  year  may  answer  that  question.  The  total 
number  of  our  communicating  members,  including  the 
traveling  and  local  ministers,  is  1,566,828,  a  gain  for 
the  year  of  31,766,  and  for  the  period  since  1866  of 
over  1,100,000,  or  nearly  300  per  cent  inside  of  a  sin- 
gle generation.  These  are  gathered  into  47  Annual 
Conferences,  295  districts,  5,208  pastoral  charges,  and 
18,561  separate  societies  or  congregations.  The  total 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  81 

number  of  traveling  preachers  is  6,220,  an  increase 
for  the  year  of  151,  and  of  local  preachers  4,806,  a 
decrease  of  10.  The  total  number  of  Sunday  school 
scholars  and  teachers  is  1,088,896,  an  increase  of  45,- 
285.  The  total  number  of  Epworth  Leaguers  is  123,- 
325,  an  increase  of  6,746.  We  have  15,090  houses  of 
worship  valued  at  $26,604,777,  an  increase  in  value 
of  $1,401,744;  4,453  parsonages  valued  at  $4-598>356, 
an  increase  of  $455,798.  The  total  amount  paid  to 
ministers  of  all  classes  was  $3,107,689,  an  increase  of 
$108,237.13.  The  total  amount  raised  for  missions 
and  Church  extension,  in  regard  to  which  I  am  happy 
to  inform  you  that  we  are  feeling  the  definite  thrill  and 
enthusiasm  of  a  new  interest,  was  $799,313.94,  an  in- 
crease of  $84,083.95.  The  total  amount  raised  for 
superannuated  preachers  was  $192,029.31,  an  increase 
of  $14,821.24.  The  educational  statistics  I  am  not  able 
to  present  in  detail ;  but  I  am  prepared  to  say  that  our 
schools  and  colleges,  though  much  hampered  and  re- 
stricted by  their  lack  of  adequate  equipment  and  en- 
dowment, are  doing  more  satisfactory  work  than  ever 
before.  One  result  of  our  Twentieth  Century  Move- 
ment was  the  securing  of  subscriptions  to  the  amount 
of  nearly  $2,000,000  for  strengthening  this  arm  of 
service. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  all  elementary  education  in 
America  has  been  taken  over  by  the  several  States 
and  is  becoming  more  and  more  purely  secular  in 
character.  The  States  are  also  making  an  effort  to 
monopolize  the  higher  forms  of  intellectual  training. 
In  many  of  the  State  universities  the  faculties  are 
made  up  largely  of  noble  Christian  scholars  and  a 
6 


82  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

genuine  Christian  temper  prevails.  In  others  there  is 
an  attitude  of  easy  indifference  or  of  open  contempt 
for  religion.  It  is  becoming  quite  customary  to  sneer 
at  the  little  Church  colleges  as  "preacher  factories." 
As  acute  a  student  of  our  institutions,  however,  as 
Mr.  Bryce  bears  ungrudging  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  they  have  had  much  to  do  in  toning  up  the  in- 
telligence and  the  morals  of  the  communities  in  which 
they  are  situated.  We  do  not  mean  to  abandon  them. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  our  fixed  purpose  to  strengthen 
them  in  every  possible  way.  Leaving  all  other  con- 
siderations out  of  view,  they  have  a  large  and  definite 
value  as  feeders  of  our  ministry.  While  they  cannot 
compete  with  the  great  universities  in  offering  the 
broadest  scholastic  opportunities,  they  do  afford  good 
facilities  for  fundamental  training.  We  are  so  far 
from  being  ashamed  of  them  that  we  point  to  them 
as  our  jewels. 

Among  the  many  other  schemes  that  we  now  have 
on  hand  is  one  to  raise  $5,000,000  as  a  permanent 
endowment  fund  to  supplement  the  various  Conference 
endowments  and  the  annual  collections  for  the  super- 
annuate preachers  and  their  widows  and  orphans.  A 
fine  beginning  has  already  been  made,  and  we  feel 
entirely  confident  of  securing  in  due  time  the  entire 
sum. 

Our  Publishing  House  is  doing  well,  isending  out 
millions  of  copies  of  its  various  periodical  publications 
and  issuing  and  circulating  many  valuable  books. 
During  the  coming  year  the  Agents  will  erect  new 
buildings  at  a  cost  of  at  least  $150,000. 

I  am  glad  to  say  that  we  are  on  good  terms  with 


'A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism,  83 

nearly  all  other  Christian  communities — with  all,  in 
fact,  that  are  willing  to  be  on  good  terms  with  us — and 
that  our  relations  are  especially  pleasant  with  our  sis- 
ter Episcopal  Methodism  in  the  Northern  States,  which 
is,  past  all  dispute,  one  of  the  most  potent  forces  for 
righteousness  in  the  Protestant  world,  and  for  the 
continued  welfare  of  which  we  pray  with  devout 
hearts.  A  scheme  for  federation  with  this  body,  look- 
ing to  the  abatement  and  removal  of  all  unseemly  ri- 
valries and  jealousies  and  to  cordial  cooperation  in  mat- 
ters of  common  interest,  was  inaugurated  by  our  Gen- 
eral Conference  ten  years  ago  and  is  now  beginning 
to  bear  fruit.  One  of  its  best  consequences  is  the 
preparation  of  a  joint  hymnal,  catechism,  and  order  of 
worship  for  at  least  5,00x3,000  American  Methodists. 

The  question  of  organic  union  comes  up  once  in  a 
while,  but  it  has  not  yet  advanced  beyond  the  academic 
stage.  Whether  it  would  be  wise  to  attempt  to  bring 
so  large  a  number  of  Christian  people,  living  in  so  vast 
a  territory,  under  the  absolute  legislative  control  of  one 
General  Conference,  may  be  safely  doubted.  It  is  quite 
possible  to  confuse  a  mere  lust  for  ecclesiastical  empire 
with  zeal  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  A  centralized  ecu- 
menical Church,  grown  fat  and  proud  of  its  enormous 
bulk,  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  traditions  and 
tendencies  of  Romanism,  but  utterly  out  of  tune  with 
all  the  true  conceptions  of  Protestantism.  But  the 
essential  unity  of  believers,  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  bond  of  peace,  must  be  emphasized  and  cultivated. 
Since  the  Shepherd  is  one,  the  flock  is  likewise  one; 
and  this  is  none  the  less  the  case  because  of  its  being 
housed  in  many  separate  folds. 


84  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

I  have  been  asked  more  than  once,  Mr.  President, 
how  it  is  that  in  a  democratic  country  we  have  adopted 
a  strong  episcopacy.  My  answer  to  that  question  is 
that  it  is  just  exactly  our  extreme  democracy  which 
has  rendered  episcopacy  expedient  among  us.  As  a 
matter  of  course,  we  scout  the  very  thought  of  resting 
it  on  divine  right,  except  in  so  far  as  we  believe  that 
inside  the  limitations  of  New  Testament  principles 
every  Church  has  the  inalienable  divine  right  to  frame 
its  own  form  of  government  to  suit  its  own  necessities. 
We  rejoice,  Mr.  President,  in  the  proven  truth  that 
Methodism,  being  essentially  a  religion  of  the  Spirit, 
is  able  to  retain  its  vigor  under  any  form — "lest  one 
good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world."  You  may 
depend  upon  it,  moreover,  that  if  our  bishops  should 
in  the  general  opinion  cease  to  administer  their  office 
with  wisdom,  unselfishness,  and  gentle  strength,  we 
should  soon  get  rid  of  them,  not  by  anarchic  and  revo- 
lutionary measures,  but  in  an  orderly  and  constitutional 
manner. 

A  counterpoise  to  this  particular  feature  of  our 
Church  polity  is  the  increasing  influence  of  laymen  in 
all  our  councils.  They  sit  in  equal  numbers  with  the 
ministers  in  the  General  Conference  and  vote  on  all 
questions.  In  the  Annual  Conferences,  which  with  us 
have  no  legislative  authority  but  are  purely  administra- 
tive in  character,  they  are  represented  by  four  delegates 
from  each  district  (one  of  whom  may  be  a  local  preach- 
er), and  they  participate  without  restriction  in  all  the 
proceedings,  except — a  very  important  exception — 
such  as  affect  ministerial  character. 

I  need  not  tell  you  how  strong  is  our  antipathy  to 


'A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  85 

everything  like  successionalism  or  sacerdotalism.  We 
are  believers  in  the  historical  continuity  of  the  Church 
of  God — the  continuity  of  thought  and  life.  But  we 
reject,  root  and  branch,  the  notion  of  tactual  succes- 
sion and  thank  God  from  the  bottom  of  our  hearts  that 
we  are  not  in  it.  The  true  succession  is  in  sound  doc- 
trine and  holy  living.  "The  Church  is  where  the 
Christians  are" — and  it  is  nowhere  else. 

With  all  the  forms  of  sacramentalism  we  are  almost 
impatient.  The  advocates  of  it  tell  us  with  an  air  of 
superior  learning  that  "priest  is  only  presbyter  writ 
short,"  a  fact  which  we  might  be  presumed  to  know. 
But  by  a  piece  of  juggling  that  can  scarcely  be  called 
honest  they  forthwith  proceed  to  thrust  into  the  word 
the  meaning  of  iepcvs  and  saccrdos,  and  seem  a  little 
surprised  and  hurt  that  we  insist  on  taking  cognizance 
of  the  trick.  While  reverencing  the  two  simple  sacra- 
mental badges  of  the  faith,  we  maintain  that  the  free 
spirit  whose  movements  are  as  unfettered  as  those  of 
the  viewless  wind  is  not  tied  to  them  and,  indeed,  does 
often  work  apart  from  them.  We  rejoice  with  St. 
Paul  that  we  are  sent  "not  to  baptize,"  not  to  make 
baptism  or  any  other  rite  or  ceremony  our  chief  con- 
cern, "but  to  preach  the  gospel."  The  epithet  of 
"preaching  institute"  which  Isaac  Taylor  fixed  upon 
Methodism  so  long  ago  we  wear  as  a  badge  of  honor. 

And  what  a  version  of  the  gospel  it  is  that  we  hold 
in  trust !  How  small  is  the  modification  that  it  is  nec- 
essary for  us  to  make,  even  in  the  outward  form  of 
Wesleyanism,  to  render  it  adaptable  to  the  needs  of 
the  present  day!  As  our  Bishop  Paine  used  to  say: 
"We  have  less  to  take  back  than  any  of  them."  We 


86  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

carry  no  burden  of  closet  theology  that  needs  to  be 
explained  by  being  explained  away  and  that  calls 
for  apology  in  the  minds  of  plain  people.  The  mar- 
row and  substance  of  our  message  at  once  commends 
itself  to  the  common  sense  of  the  world.  Let  us  stick 
to  it. 

I  would,  Mr.  President,  that  I  might  stop  just  here. 
But  I  am  forced  to  concede  that,  in  spite  of  our  abun- 
dant prosperity,  we  have  much  to  disturb  and  distress 
us.  The  atmosphere  is  increasingly  impregnated  with 
the  germs  of  doubt.  A  feeling  of  uncertainty  has  taken 
possession  of  the  minds  of  a  great  many  people,  and 
they  are  raising  the  question  as  to  whether,  after  all, 
we  have  not  been  building  on  the  sand  instead  of  on 
the  rock.  Very  often  they  are  not  enemies  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  simply  weak  believers  without  that  hgroic 
strain  in  their  faith  which  has  our  Lord's  promise  oi 
speciaj  blessing. 

Among  other  causes  which  have  wrought  to  produce 
this  state  of  affairs  is  the  general  dissemination  of  the 
views  advanced  by  the  higher  critics  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  A  thoughtful  scholar  may  accept  for  him- 
self most  of  these  views  without  at  all  surrendering  his 
established  Christian  convictions.  The  law  of  charity 
forbids  me  to  think  otherwise.  But  the  masses  of  the 
people,  when  they  are  told  that  they  must  no  longer 
regard  the  Bible  as  being  the  Word  of  God  but  as 
simply  containing  the  Word  of  God  in  solution  with 
many  purely  human  elements,  are  naturally  staggered 
and  unsettled.  "What,  then,  are  we  to  do?"  they  ask. 
"Who  shall  help  us  to  discriminate  what  is  divine  and 
authoritative  from  what  is  human  and  without  binding 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  87 

force  on  the  intellect  and  the  conscience?"  The  minis- 
ter who  can  make  light  of  a  question  like  this,  carrying 
as  it  often  doe_s_a  burden  of  tearful  agony,  has  the 
heart  of  a  fiend  in  him. 

Of  course  we  cannot  suppress  investigation.  We 
are  Protestants  and  not  Romanists.  "Light  and  more 
light"  is  our  watchword.  Whatever  is  proved  true 
\y_e  are  bound  to  accept,  no  matter  how  much  the  effort 
may  cps.t  us.  But  let  us  not  be  rash.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  foolery  mixed  up  with  this  higher  criticism. 
The  leader  who  gets  too  far  ahead  of  the  procession 
ceases  to  be  a  leader  and  becomes  a  solitary  individual 
going  his  own  gait.  There  is  no  want  which  the 
Church  just  now  feels  more  keenly  than  the  want  of  a 
sufficient  number  of  profound,  well-balanced,  and  de- 
vout scholars  without  even  a  trace  of  the  pride  of 
learning  and  with  a  keen  and  solemn  sense  of  their 
responsibility  to  God,  who  shall  be  able  to  find  safe  and 
solid  marching  ground  for  those  of  us  wrhose  duties 
lie  in  the  sphere  of  active  labor  rather  than  in  the  pur- 
suit of  exact  and  minute  learning.  Personally,  I  feel, 
no.  trepidation  as  to  the  final  issue.  The  things  which 
cannot  be  shaken  will  remain  as  a  heritage  to  our 
children  and  our  children's  children.  But  I  am  gravely^, 
f  concerned  to  arrest,  if  it  may  be,  the  disintegrating 
'  effect  of  the  new  and  often  more  than  doubtful  teacl> 
xjng  upon  the  present  generation. 
~~This  attitude  of  mental  indecision  concerning  which 
I  have  spoken  is  accompanied,  as  we  might  naturally 
expect,  by  an  increasing  spirit  of  worldliness.  And 
who  shall  define  this  spirit  ?  Subtle,  elusive,  persistent, 
it  laughs  at  the  impotent  endeavors  of  prohibitive  leg- 


88  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

islation,  and  slips  through  the  meshes  of  the  carefulest 
statutes  that  are  framed  to  restrain  it.  In  the  presence 
of  it  the  higher  and  finer  graces  all  wither  away  and 
die.  The  outward  decency  which  it  often  maintains 
only  makes  it  the  more  dangerous.  When  it  puts  on 
purple  and  fine  linen  and  fares  sumptuously  every  day, 
what  rude  prophet  of  the  Lord  shall  dare  to  call  it  in 
question  ?  The  manifestations  of  worldliness  are  many. 
In  the  large  cities,  and  slowly  also  in  our  towns  and 
country  places,  there  is  a  growing  disregard  of  the 
Lord's  day.  The  blessed  and  holy  Sabbath  which  I 
knew  as  a  boy,  when  a  hush  and  stillness  like  that  of 
eternity  came  over  the  whole  community,  is  largely 
gone,  and  in  its  place  there  has  come  in  too  many  in- 
stances a  day  of  strenuous  pleasure-seeking,  of  empty 
and  idle  amusement.  It  needs  no  prophet  to  forecast 
the  damage  which  we  are  sure  to  suffer  from  this 
charge.  There  is  an  increasingly  eager  struggle  for 
wealth.  The  South,  which  has  been  tested  in  every 
other  way,  is  to  be  tested  again  at  this  point.  We 
survived  the  loss  of  $4,000,000,000  worth  of  property 
in  1861-65  and  the  almost  complete  stagnation  of  the 
ten  years  that  followed  without  serious  hurt  to  our 
character.  Whether  we  shall  be  able  to  stand  the  re- 
newed prosperity  that  comes  from  cotton  crops  worth 
more  than  half  a  billion  a  year,  to  say  nothing  of  our 
other  immense  gains,  is  an  open  question.  The  sanc- 
tity of  family  life  among  us  is  also  in  peril,  less  per- 
haps in  the  South  than  elsewhere,  but  enough  so  to 
fill  us  with  the  deepest  concern.  The  facility  for  di- 
vorce and  the  frequency  of  its  practice  causes  us  to 
blush.  Among  some  of  our  richer  folk  there  is  a  laxity 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  89 

of  view  and  of  conduct  in  this  regard  that  would  dis- 
grace a  Hottentot  or  a  Digger  Indian. 

The  liquor  business  with  us  is  wholly  and  irredeem- 
ably bad.  In  addition  to  its  other  iniquities,  which  are 
enough  to  brand  it  before  God  and  men,  it  goes  into 
politics,  controls  municipal  nominations  and  elections, 
and  becomes  an  organized  agency  of  public  corruption. 
Our  attitude  as  a  Church  toward  it  is  one  of  open, 
unqualified,  and  eternal  opposition.  In  the  South,  be- 
cause of  its  relations  to  race  troubles  as  well  as  for 
other  reasons,  we  have  had  to  take  it  by  the  throat. 
In  the  State  of  Mississippi,  for  example,  and  very 
largely  through  the  influence  of  our  Bishop  Galloway, 
it  has  been  driven  from  over  sixty  of  the  seventy  coun- 
ties. The  same  general  policy,  mutatis  mutandis,  pre- 
vails all  the  way  from  Virginia  to  Texas. 

The  race  question  is  a  living  issue  with  us  in  more 
forms  than  one.  Though  the  dominant  strain  of  our 
blood  is  English,  we  are  yet  a  sort  of  hodgepodge  of 
nationalities.  Our  power  of  assimilation  has  been  im- 
mense. In  the  past  most  of  the  immigrants  have  been 
of  a  kind  that  we  could  easily  digest  and  incorporate — 
English,  French,  Germans,  Scandinavians,  and  Irish. 
In  these  days  we  are  getting  more  than  half  a  million 
yearly,  chiefly  Neapolitans,  Hungarians,  Bohemians, 
and  Poles — a  fact  which  gives  us  thought  and  pause. 
The  negro  problem  confronts  us  throughout  the  South. 
Concerning  it  I  shall  make  a  few  remarks. 

I.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  negroes  are  living  on 
terms  of  absolute  friendship  with  their  white  neigh- 
bors, and  are  earning  a  better  living  by  their  daily  labor 
than  is  enjoyed  by  any  other  peasantry  in  the  world, 


90  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

You  cannot  find  one  among  the  10,000,000  of  them  but 
would  turn  up  his  nose — a  difficult  task — at  the  wages 
offered  to  the  imported  mine  workers  in  South  Africa. 

2.  The  impoverished  white  South  has  taxed  itself 
to  the  extent  of  $150,000,000  to  provide  schools  for 
the  negro  children.    Not  one  of  them  all  is  debarred 
from  acquiring  an  elementary  education. 

3.  Very  slowly,  yet,  as  I  believe,  quite  steadily,  the 
race  is  making  progress.     It  is  not  the  equal  of  the 
white  race  either  in  intellectual  force  or  in  moral  ca- 
pacity ;  and  it  never  will  be,  for  God  has  not  built  the 
universe  on  a  dead  level.    Not  uniformity  but  variety 
is  the  law  of  his  working.    Yet  individual  negroes  show 
themselves  worthy  of  all  honor,  and  the  great  body  of 
them  may  advance  indefinitely  in  many  ways. 

4.  The  two  races  will  remain  distinct  and  separate, 
more  so,  arid  not  less  so,  as  the  years  go  by,.    It  is  the 
universal  opinion  of  those  who  have  studied  the  whole 
subject  most  thoroughly  that  anything  which  directly 
or  remotely  leads  to  the  production  of  a  mongrel  breed 
puts  in  peril  the  best  interests  of  both  races. 

5.  I  have  said  that  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  negroes 
are  doing  well,  and  I  stick  to  it.    But  there  is  a  rem- 
nant of  untamed  tropical  savages  among  them,  and 
they  make  the  trouble   and   furnish  the  pretext   for 
those  irregular  and  lawless  acts  of  retaliatory  ven- 
geance which  are  a  standing  reproach  to  our  civiliza- 
tion. 

What  the  udtimate  result  is  to  be,  I  know  not.  Nor 
is  the  man  alive  who  can  make  a  satisfactory  forecast. 
In  spite  of  all  our  difficulties  and  dangers  we  are  full 
of  hope.  We  are  living  in  a  better  world  than  our 


A  Message  to  the  Mother  Church  of  Methodism.  91 

fathers  occupied,  and  we  trust  to  make  it  better  still 
for  our  children.  Our  faith  in  a  living  God  who  is  still 
on  the  throne  renders  it  impossible  for  us  to  be  pessi- 
mists. Not  till  we  became  atheists  shall  we  lose  heart. 
Animated  by  the  recollection  of  his  help  in  all  the 
crises  and  emergencies  of  the  past,  and  sustained  and 
cheered  by  the  miracles  of  his  grace  in  the  present,  we 
shall  lengthen  our  cords  and  strengthen  our  stakes  for 
the  future.  Tinging  ahy_ays  larger  thought  of  him, 
setting  higher  standards  of  character  and  conduct  for 
ourselves,  seeing  visions  and  dreaming  dreams  of  the 
universal  spread  and  sway  of  his  kingdom  in  the  earth, 
we  shall  move  right  on  in  our  work  with  fervent 
prayers  ever  rising  from  our  hearts  and  jubilant  songs, 
louder  and  sweeter  than  the  sound  of  many  waters, 
breaking  from  our  lips. 


IV. 
THE  RELIGIOUS  NEWSPAPER. 


"What  I  tell  you  in  darkness,  that  speak  ye  in  light:  and 
what  ye  hear  in  the  ear,  that  preach  ye  upon  the  housetops." 
(Matt.  x.  27.) 


THE  RELIGIOUS  NEWSPAPER. 

[Address  delivered  before  the  Ecumenical  Conference  of 
1891,  at  Washington,  D.  C] 

Mr.  President:  When  Dr.  Edward  A.  Freeman,  the 
historian  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  was  appointed  to 
the  Chair  of  Modern  Languages  in  Oxford  University, 
he  found  himself,  so  he  tells  us,  greatly  puzzled  to 
determine  the  exact  limits  of  the  province  that  had 
been  assigned  him.  The  best  authorities,  moreover, 
gave  him  scant  assistance  in  reaching  a  satisfactory 
conclusion.  Baron  Bunsen,  for  example,  contended 
that  modern  history  really  began  with  the  call  of  Ab- 
raham. Another  eminent  scholar  stoutly  insisted  on 
drawing  the  line  at  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. After  much  thought,  Dr.  Freeman  professed  a 
readiness  to  compromise  between  these  extreme  views 
by  accepting  the  first  Olympiad  as  the  proper  starting 
point.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  entered  the  stream  of 
events  at  a  point  about  twrelve  hundred  years  lower 
down. 

Saving  the  gracious  presence  of  the  Program  Com- 
mittee, may  I  not  say  that  the  topic  which  is  now  up 
for  discussion  is  equally  indefinite  in  character?  The 
religious  press  by  itself  offers  a  wide  field  for  consid- 
eration. When  we  add  to  this  the  religious  uses  of  tfie 
secular  press,  we  have  staked  off  more  ground  than  we 
can  possibly  occupy  in  the  brief  limits  allowed.  In 
view  of  these  things,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
Program  Committee  had  it  in  mind  that  each  speaker, 

(95) 


g6  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

instead  of  adhering  strictly  to  the  lines  laid  down  by  the 
essayist,  should  be  at  liberty  to  dwell  upon  any  such  as- 
pect of  the  general  subject  as  might  commend  itself  to 
his  taste  or  judgment.  The  particular  topic,  therefore, 
on  which  I  shall  speak  is  "The  Religious  Newspaper." 
If  I  barely  touch  the  various  points  which  I  bring  for- 
ward, you  may  understand  that  it  is  because  the  time 
will  not  allow  me  to  do  more. 

That  Methodism  has  never  been  indifferent  to  the 
religious  newspaper  needs  no  proof.  If  proof  were 
needed,  it  could  be  commanded  in  abundance.  Should 
I  call  the  roll  of  the  men  that  in  the  past  have  been 
assigned  by  it  to  editorial  work,  you  would  no  doubt  be 
startled.  Pardon  me  if  I  confine  myself  here  to  my 
own  Church.  Of  the  Christian  Advocate,  with  'which 
I  have  the  honor  to  be  connected,  the  following 
gentlemen  have  been  editors :  John  Newland  Marfit, 
Irishman  and  orator  (£wo  w_ords,  Mr.  President,  for 
one  thing)  ;  Thomas  Stringfield,  whose  militant  temper 
made  him  a  brave  soldier  under  Andrew  Jackson  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  and  who  spent  the  larger  part  of 
his  ministerial  life  in  smiting,  hip  and  thigh,  the  various 
forms  of  Calvinism ;  John  Berry  McFerrin,  a  genuine 
product  of  the  Scotch-Irishry,  the  great  tribune  of  our 
American  Church,  who  stood  squarely  against  all  the 
enemies  of  Methodism  and  of  his  Methodism,  but  the 
dream  of  whose  closing  years  and  the  prayer  of  whose 
dying  hours,  as  I  know,  were  that  all  fraternal  strifes 
might  cease  and  all  fraternal  misunderstandings  be 
perfectly  adjusted;  Holland  Nimmons  McTyeire,  the 
greatest  man,  take  him  all  in  all,  that  I  have  ever 
known,  whose  career  of  ever-increasing  power  and  use- 


The  Religious  Newspaper.  97 

fulness  contradicted  the  current  maxim  that  extreme 
precocity  means  early  decay,  editor  of  the  New  Orleans 
Advocate  at  twenty-seven,  of  the  Nashville  Advocate 
at  thirty-two,  and  bishop  at  forty-one,  on  whose  granite 
tombstone  is  cut  the  simple  inscription,  "A  leader  of 
men,  a  lover  of  children";  Thomas  O.  Summers,  as 
bluff  and  hearty  an  Englishman  as  ever  set  his  face 
toward  the  New  World,  behind  whose  loud  and  genial 
bluster  there  lay  the  kindest  of  human  hearts,  an  om- 
nivorous reader  of  all  sorts  of  books,  knowing  espe- 
cially John  Wesley's  sermons  and  Charles  Wesley's 
hymns  by  heart,  and  so  extremely  orthodox  that  Dr. 
Albert  Taylor  Bledsoe  once  charged  him,  though  un- 
justly, with  measuring  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
by  Watson's  "Institutes";  and  Oscar  Penn  Fitzgerald, 
of  whom  I  dare  not  say  all  the  thoughts  that  are  in 
my  heart,  but  of  whom  I  shall  say  this,  that  the  ex- 
quisite delicacy  of  his  literary  touch  is  equaled  only  by 
the  perfect  brotherliness  of  his  temper.  Were  I  to  go 
to  the  other  of  our  papers,  I  should,  of  course,  mention 
William  Capers,  scholar  and  gentleman,  first  fraternal 
delegate  from  America  to  British  Methodism,  whose 
fitting  epitaph  records  the  two  facts  that  he  was  "a 
bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  and 
founder  of  the  missions  to  the  slaves";  William  M. 
Wightman,  courtly,  cultivated,  Christlike;  Leroy  M. 
Lee,  the  nephew  of  that  Jesse  Lee  who  once  upon  a 
time  preached  on  Boston  Common,  and  who  could  hit  a 
tremendous  blow  and  follow  it  up  with  a  succession  of 
others  in  the  same  place;  Thomas  E.  Bond,  Jr.,  the 
greater  son  of  his  great  father,  a  man  of  science  and 
man  of  letters,  the  most  erudite,  incisive,  and  resource- 
7 


98  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

ful  of  American  Methodist  editors;  Linus  Parker,  a 
gift  of  New  York  to  New  Orleans,  whose  editorials 
were  Addisonian  essays  in  finish  and  elegance,  and  who 
modestly  shunned  notoriety  as  much  as  common  men 
seek  it ;  John  C.  Keener,  who  nevej  said  a  stupid  thing^ 
and  never  did  a  cowardly  one  j  and  John  J.  Lafferty, 
a  true  wizard  of  the  ink  horn  and  magician  with  words. 
I  wish  I  could  go  farther  in  this  direction,  but  I  cannot. 
The  developments  that  have  taken  place  in  secular 
journalism  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  are  indeed 
amazing.  To  accomplish  what  has  been  done,  money 
has  been  spent  like  water  and  the  best  brain  of  the 
world  has  been  called  into  use  and  service.  That  the 
religious  newspaper,  though  it  has  also  made  very 
gratifying  progress,  has  not  kept  an  equal  pace  nor 
reached  an  equal  degree  of  excellence  is  an  unques- 
tionable fact.  It  is  still  susceptible  of  vast  improve- 
ment. To  secure  this  improvement  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible is  the  duty  of  all  concerned.  Every  agency  em- 
ployed in  the  interest  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  ought 
to  be  of  the  highest  possible  character.  It  was  fit  that 
the  initial  gifts  which  our  Lord  received  after  he  "be- 
came incarnate  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation" 
should  be  "gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh."  We  must 
set  up  an  ideal  standard  of  excellence  for  the  religious 
press,  and  require  our  publishers  and  editors  to  aim  at 
reaching  it.  They  will  not  at  once  succeed,  but  the 
effort  to  do  so  will  have  its  due  effect.  Here,  as  in 
all  departments  of  religious  activity,  the  empirical 
method  must  be  dropped,  and  into  its  place  must  be 
put  a  rational  and  controlling  conception  of  the  ends 
sought  to  be  secured,  This  much  premised,  let  me  say : 


The  Religious  Newspaper.  99 

1.  That  the  religious  newspaper  must  be  under  the 
control  of  the   Church.     There  are  some  intelligent 
persons  who  assure  us  that  what  they  are  pleased  to 
call  an  unmuzzled  and  independent  press  is  a  prime 
necessity  of  healthy  ecclesiastical  growth.     This  as- 
sumes that  an  official  press  is  both  muzzled  and  de- 
pendent.    I  could  easily  show  the  fallacy  of  such  an 
assumption,  but  I  choose  to  refute  it  by  a  concrete 
instance.     If  it  were  true,  the  official  editors  would 
simply  echo  one  another  in  endless  iteration ;  but  it  is 
recorded  somewhere  in  the  ancient  history  of  the  Meth- 
odist  Episcopal   Church  that   when   a  certain  grave 
question  in  which  the  better  three-fourths  of  our  hu- 
manity were  much  concerned  came  up  for  settlement, 
Drs.  Buckley  and  Warren  and  Smith  ranged  them- 
selves definitely  on  one  side  and  Drs.  Moore  and  Ed- 
wards and  Fry  on  the  other.    Without  pausing  longer 
I  wish  to  say  that  every  argument  which  can  be  used 
to  show  that  the  Church  should  exercise  some  sort  of 
effective  supervision  over  her  pulpits  can  also  be  used 
to  show  that  she  should  be  able  to  lay  her  directing 
hand  upon  the  press.     Independent  journalism  is  on 
the  outside ;  it  stands  on  its  own  merits.    As  a  stimulus 
and  gadfly  it  has  its  values;  but  decrying  ecclesiasti- 
cal machinery  as  it  does,  it  has  no  right  to  use  this 
machinery  to  promote  its  own  private  interests. 

2.  The  religious  newspaper  ought  not  to  be  con- 
ducted "for  revenue  only,"  or  chiefly,  or  at  all.    When- 
ever it  comes  to  be  considered  as  an  instrument  for 
money-making,  either  for  an  individual  owner  or  for 
a  company  of  stockholders  or  for  a  Church,  it  neces- 
sarily  suffers   some  subtraction   from  its  power  for 


loo  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

good.  I  sincerely  doubt  whether  it  ought  ever  to  be 
allowed  to  make  more  than  just  enough  to  pay  its  own 
way.  Whatever  profits  may  accrue  from  its  publica- 
tion should  be  speedily  returned  in  the  form  of  better- 
ments. From  this  general  statement  two  practical  in- 
ferences are  to  be  drawn. 

First,  there  are  probably  not  a  dozen  religious  news- 
papers in  the  United  States  that  have  each  an  editorial 
staff  fully  equal  to  the  highest  demands.  The  miser- 
able economy  which  grinds  the  life  out  of  a  few  men 
by  laying  impossible  tasks  upon  their  shoulders  in  or- 
der that  dividends  may  be  large  ought  to  cease.  Hard- 
headed  men  of  the  world  are  not  guilty  of  such  folly, 
and  the  Church  ought  by  this  time  to  have  learned 
wisdom  enough  to  avoid  it.  Every  editor  in  chief 
should  be  surrounded  and  supported  by  a  full  corps  of 
competent  assistants.  Imagine  one  man  from  week  to 
week  writing  leaders  and  paragraphs,  summarizing  the 
world's  news,  reviewing  books  and  periodicals,  answer- 
ing queries,  clipping  the  best  things  from  his  exchanges, 
reducing  the  bulk  and  improving  the  quality  of  swollen 
communications,  editing  obituaries,  carrying  on  an 
extensive  correspondence,  rearing  a  family  in  the  fear 
of  God,  and  cultivating  his  personal  piety!  There  is 
no  man  within  the  range  of  my  acquaintance  whose 
nervous,  intellectual,  and  moral  resources  are  equal  to 
such  an  undertaking. 

In  the  second  place,  and  on  the  same  line,  the  use  of 
the  columns  of  a  religious  newspaper  for  advertising 
purposes  ought  to  be  most  scrupulously  guarded.  At 
this  point"  I  am  happy  to  say  that  there  has  in  recent 
years  been  a  great  change  for  the  better.  Whether  the 


The  Religious  Nezcspaper.  101 

change  has  resulted  from  an  improved  moral  sensitive- 
ness on  the  part  of  publishers  or  from  the  external 
pressure  of  public  opinion,  it  would  be  difficult  to  tell. 
There  is  still  no  little  room  for  improvement.  What 
is  more  common  than  to  see  the  columns  of  a  Church 
journal  loaded  down  with  puffs  of  patent  medicines 
which  profess  to  be  sovereign  cures  for  all  the  ills  that 
flesh  is  hear  to,  but  which  are,  in  fact,  the  veriest  hum- 
bugs, and  which  must  be  known  to  the  editors  and 
publishers  as  such  ?  How  does  it  look  when  two  pages 
front  each  other,  one  lauding  the  merits  of  a  "consump- 
tion cure"  and  the  other  insisting  with  most  unctuous 
entreaty  upon  the  blessedness  of  the  "higher  life"? 
There  is  an  ex-editor  in  this  body  who,  when  a  rive- 
thousand-dollar  check  was  offered  him  for  space  in 
which  to  insert  a  standing  advertisement  of  a  commod- 
ity of  doubtful  quality,  answered:  "No;  not  if  you 
would  make  it  fifty  thousand."  Shall  a  mercenary  cu- 
pidity be  longer  allowed  to  disgrace  the  cause  of  Christ 
at  this  point  ?  Shall  we,  while  preaching  that  godliness 
is  gain,  act  upon  the  principle  that  gain  is  godliness? 
Has  not  the  time  fully  come  for  repentance,  for  refor- 
mation, for  amendment  ? 

3.  The  religious  newspaper  ought  not  to  be  turned 
into  a  mere  bulletin  board  for  the  recording  of  current 
events.  True,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  newspaper  it  must 
give  a  full  and  specific  account  of  whatever  important 
events  are  taking  place  in  any  part  of  the  world ;  and 
inasmuch  as  the  Christianity  of  which  it  is  the  exponent 
lays  claim  on  every  department  of  healthy  secular  life, 
it  must  not  be  indifferent  to  transactions  of  a  political, 
commercial,  scientific,  or  artistic  character.  But  at  the 


IO2  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

same  time  it  must  sift  and  winnow  the  great  mass  of 
details,  throw  aside  whatever  is  ephemeral  in  character, 
and  publish  only  what  is  of  general  significance  and 
permanent  value.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  every- 
thing should  be  excluded  that  cannot  go  with  perfect 
propriety  into  a  Christian  home.  Sensational  features 
are  a  blot  upon  even  our  "enterprising"  secular  journal- 
ism. In  connection  with  our  religious  press  they  are 
not  to  be  tolerated  for  one  moment. 

4.  On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  newspaper  is 
equally  not  a  quarterly  review.  This  fact  limits  its 
scope  in  one  direction  as  much  as  the  fact  which  we 
have  just  been  considering  does  in  another  direction. 
It  must  be  able  to  discuss  even  the  greatest  questions 
of  science,  philosophy,  and  religion,  but  in  a  brief  and 
popular  way.  There  are  some  excellent  and  intelligent 
people  who  do  not  believe  that  this  is  a  possibility,  but 
I  am  not  of  the  number.  Even  the  highest  and 
most  abstract  themes  can  be  presented  in  such  a  fashion 
as  will  make  them  apprehensible  by  the  common  mind. 
The  technical  language  of  the  books  and  the  schools 
can  be  translated  into  the  ordinary  speech  of  everyday 
life.  The  people  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  not 
read  a  long  and  elaborate  article  in  a  daily  or  weekly 
paper.  Three  columns  of  "Trichotomy,"  "to  be  con- 
tinued in  the  next  issue,"  will  cut  down  the  subscrip- 
tion list.  In  preparing  the  dishes  which  are  to  furnish 
forth  our  feasts,  we  must,  within  limits  at  least,  con- 
sult the  tastes  of  the  guests  that  are  to  sit  at  our  boards. 
It  is  not  worth  while  to  supply  an  abundance  of  food 
which  we  know  they  will  not  eat.  The  same  general 
principle  will  condemn  what  is  knowrn  as  "the  blanket 


The  Religious  Newspaper.  103 

sheet,"  which  is  likely  to  be  a  mere  hodgepodge  or 
omnium  gatherum,  characterless  and  profitless.  Not 
quantity  but  quality  is  the  thing  to  be  aimed  at.  An 
ounce  of  attar  of  roses  is  worth  a  hundred  gallons  of 
the  scented  waters  of  the  ordinary  drug  store. 

5.  The  religious  journal  is  not  a  pulpit.    This  is  a 
very  widely  spread  delusion.    Once  in  a  while,  under 
the  influence  of  it,  an  eloquent  and  ambitious  preacher 
seeks  and  finds  an  editorial  post.     No  sooner  is  he 
safely  fixed  in  his  place  than  he  lifts  up  his  voice  and 
begins  to  discourse  as  if  he  had  an  audience  of  ten 
thousand  souls  listening  to  him.    After  he  has  cut  up 
a  few  dozen  of  his  old  sermons  into  longitudinal  sec- 
tions for  editorial  purposes,  he  is  likely  to  find  out  his 
mistake.    Somehow  or  other  the  people  do  not  respond 
to  him  as  they  did  when  he  stood  before  them  in  his 
own  proper  person.     The  sorry  stuff  which  sounded 
well  enough  when  set  out  with  fine  tricks  of  voice  and 
manner  becomes  "stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable"  when 
committed  to  the  faithful  keeping  of  cold  types.    The 
habit  of  mind  which  is  superinduced  by  preparation 
for  the  pulpit  is  essentially  different  from  that  which 
is    required  on   the  tripod.     This  is   saying   nothing 
against  either  the  pulpit  or  the  tripod,  but  only  insist- 
ing that  two  valuable  and  important  branches  of  reli- 
gious  service  are  distinct  from   each  other  in  their 
methods,  though  they  wholly  agree  as  to  their  ultimate 
aims. 

6.  The  religious  newspaper  goes  its  full  length  for  all 
just,  refojrms.    It  must  b<Ta  leader  of  the  Lord's  hosts 
if  it  is  to  do  its  full  work,  not  merely  catching  and 
reflecting  a  public  opinion  that  already  exists,  but  ere- 


IO4  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

ating  and  guiding  such  opinion  in  all  right  directions. 
If  this  were  the  time  and  place,  I  could  name  manifold 
instances  in  which  the  denominational  organs  have  led 
the  way  on  great  and  grave  issues.  But  the  religious 
paper  must  be  concerned  also  in  regard  to  secular  re- 
forms. The  editor  that  is  silent  in  the  face  of  the  rav- 
ages^ of  the  liquor  traffic  ought  to  be  cashiered.  The 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  him  who  has  nothing  to  say 
concerning  that  slimy  octopus,  the  Louisiana  Lottery. 
But  there  must  be  discrimination.  The  paper  that 
shouts  itself  hoarse  over  every  proposed  change  in 
social  or  political  matters  soon  loses  influence.  There 
are  reforms  and  reforms.  There  must,  therefore,  be  a 
due  proportion,  no  riding  of  hobbies,  but  a  judicious 
and  balanced  interest  in  all  human  affairs.  I  wish 
especially  to  enter  a  protest  against  the  delusion  that 
a  religious  paper  can  best  advance  the  interests  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  by  becoming  the  mouthpjece  jDf  any 
political  party ;  nay,  it  would  not  be  wise  for  it  to  do 
so  even  were  that  party  formally  to  incorporate  in  its 
platform  of  principles  the  Ten  Commandments,  the 
Apostles'  Creed,  and  the  Lord's  Prayer ! 

7.  The  religious  newspaper,  in  brief,  must  be  devout 
but  not  sanctimonious,  courageous  but  not  pugnacious, 
enterprising  but  not  sensational,  alert  but  not  pert, 
literary  but  not  pedantic — so  bright  and  sweet  and 
brave  and  strong  and  pure  that  the  question  of  its  cir- 
culation will  be  one  requiring  only  smallest  thought. 


V. 

THE  NEW  DEMANDS  UPON  METHODIST 
AUTHORSHIP. 


"Therefore  every  scribe  which  is  instructed  unto  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  man  that  is  a  householder,  which 
bringeth  forth  out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old."  (Matt, 
xiii.  52.) 


THE  NEW  DEMANDS  UPON  METHODIST 
AUTHORSHIP. 

[Address  delivered  before  the  Ecumenical  Conference,  Lon- 
don, 1901.] 

Mr.  President:  I  am  asked  by  the  Program  Commit- 
tee to  set  forth  in  ten  short  minutes  what  are  the  new 
demands  on  Methodist  authorship.  To  accomplish  this 
task  in  anything  like  a  satisfactory  manner  is  an  evident 
impossibility.  All  that  I  can  hope  is  to  furnish  a  few 
bare  suggestions.  If  these  suggestions  prove  at  all 
helpful  in  the  way  of  stimulating  thought  and  provok- 
ing discussion,  I  shall  be  abundantly  satisfied.  That 
Methodist  ministers  should  have  ever  done  anything 
valuable  in  the  way  of  authorship  is  really  a  matter  of 
wonder.  The  opportunities  that  they  enjoy  for  book- 
making  are  scanty  almost  beyond  belief.  As  soon  as 
any  man  appears  among  us  with  a  little  more  than 
common  intellectual  force  he  is  put  to  such  steady  daily 
work  that  he  has  no  leisure  left  for  scholarly  pursuits. 
It  has  been  so  from  the  beginning,  and  appears  likely 
to  be  so  to  the  end.  The  result  is  that  those  of  our 
brethren  who  have  achieved  much  in  the  field  of  letters 
have  done  so  by  a  diligent  use  of  snatched  intervals 
between  routine  drudgeries.  It  is  the  implicit  belief  of 
the  people  called  Methodists  that  there  is  no  end  to  the 
wojrking  power  of  thejr  ministers,  and  none  to  their 
versatility.  What  other  Church  would  ever  dream  of 
transferring  a  man  who  has  been  only  a  busy  and  suc- 
cessful pastor  to  the  business  secretaryship  of  a  Church 

(107) 


io8  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

extension  board?  Or  to  the  presidency  of  a  classical 
or  theological  college  ?  Or  to  the  editorship  of  a  great 
newspaper  ?  Or  to  the  command  of  the  channel  fleet  ? 
What  other  Church  would  expect  him,  in  the  midst 
of  such  multitudinous  engagements,  to  write  a  treatise 
on  the  drift  of  scientific  investigation  or  on  the  present 
aim  and  probable  outcome  of  biblical  criticism  ?  I  am 
not  saying  that  the  state  of  affairs  concerning  which  I 
thus  speak  is  wholly  evil.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not 
wholly  evil.  Out  of  it  has  come  much  good.  The 
strenuous  life  which  it  demands  is  in  many  respects  a 
spiritually  healthy  life.  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  ap- 
parent to  all  observant  minds  that  until  the  conditions 
are  somewhat  altered  we  cannot  expect  our  commun- 
ion to  produce  a  great  and  fruitful  literature.  Pro- 
vision must  be  made  for  the  more  elaborate  and  sys- 
tematic training  of  our  superior  youth  before  they  are 
called  upon  to  assume  the  active  responsibilities  of  their 
high  vocation,  and  in  some  way  or  other  a  broader 
margin  must  be  granted  them  for  the  prosecution  of 
their  studies  after  they  have  once  been  inducted  into 
their  office.  If  there  is  any  master  in  Israel  who  can 
devise  an  effective  plan  for  compassing  these  ends,  he 
will  be  fairly  entitled  to  a  monument  and  will  probably 
get  it. 

But  while  the  status  quo  remains  we  must,  neverthe- 
less, make  the  most  of  it.  The  Church  in  every  age  is 
bound  by  all  considerations  to  do  its  own  thinking.  To 
go  on  indefinitely  accepting  and  repeating  the  formulae 
of  the  fathers,  as  if  they  possessed  some  magical  virtue 
and  were  quite  too  sacred  to  be  touched  or  modified  in 
any  way,  is  to  commit  an  act  of  supreme  folly.  Every- 


New  Demands  upon  Methodist  Authorship.    109 

body  that  has  an  outlook  upon  the  course  of  history 
is  aware  of  that  inevitable  process  by  which  words  that 
originally  incarnate  and  represent  a  living  truth  have 
a  natural  tendency  to  harden  and  crystallize  into  the 
expression  of  a  dead  dogma.  I  have  sometimes  thought 
that  if  Mr.  Wesley  could  only  know  the  extent  to 
which  many  of  his  followers  have  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  repeating  the  ipsissiina  verba  of  his  teachings,  as  if 
they  were  a  final  and  conclusive  statement  of  the  truth, 
he  would  turn  over  in  his  grave  and  groan ;  for  he  him- 
self, far  from  being  the  slave  of  traditions,  was  the 
freest  and  boldest  mind  of  his  generation.  He  made 
diligent  use  of  all  available  material  from  every  source, 
but  he  called  no  man  master  and  played  the  parrot  to 
no  school  of  critics  or  theologians.  Holding  fast  the 
form  of  sound  words  does  not  mean  the  abdication  of 
one's  personal  right  to  consider,  to  weigh,  to  sift,  to 
reconstruct,  to  reject.  The  ultimate  problems  of  reli- 
gion are  eternal.  They  are  always  emerging  with  fresh 
aspects  and  calling  for  a  new  hearing.  It  is  impossible 
for  us  to  appropriate  the  best  products  of  former  in- 
quiry without  vigorous  original  research.  To  grasp 
the  full  significance  of  any  existing  tenet  it  is  necessary 
for  us  to  know  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
first  framed,  and  to  put  ourselves,  as  far  as  may  be, 
into  the  mental  atmosphere  and  attitude  of  the  men  who 
framed  it.  Is  it  too  harsh  a  judgment  to  affirm  that  the 
greatest  enemies  of  a  conservative  orthodoxy  are  those 
belated  dogmatists  who  still  cling  with  devout  stupidity 
to  the  very  letter  of  the  creeds  and  symbols  of  other 
days?  The  Methodist  who  insists  on  measuring  every- 
thing in  heaven  and  earth  by  Watson's  "Institutes"  or 


no  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

Wesley's  Sermons  is  a_  pestilent  breeder  of  heresy. 
And  what  shall  I  say  of  that  one  who,  with  the  com- 
mentaries of  Meyer  and  Godet  and  Lightfoot  and  Elli- 
cott  and  Westcott  and  the  noble  volumes  of  our  own 
Joseph  Agar  Beet  in  his  hands  or  in  his  sight,  still 
stoutly  affirms  that  the  dictum  of  Adam  Clarke  is  the 
end  of  the  law  on  a  matter  of  exposition?  We  are 
living  in  the  twentieth  century ;  and  unless  we  wish  to 
incur  the  just  suspicion  of  idiocy,  we  must  gather  and 
use  all  that  is  offered  to  us  by  the  master  workmen  who 
are  toiling  with  such  infinite  diligence  in  this  end  of 
the  ages  to  find  out  whatever  may  be  discovered  con- 
cerning the  mind  and  purpose  of  God  toward  our  lost 
world. 

What  I  have  said  might  be  said  with  a  considerable 
measure  of  pertinency  at  any  time  and  in  any  place. 
But  at  this  time  and  in  this  place  it  deserves  to  receive 
a  special  emphasis.  Two  great  movements,  more  or 
less  related  to  each  other,  are  passing  over  the  world. 
The  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  in  spite  of  the  mate- 
rialistic and  atheistic  forms  it  sometimes  assumes  uri; 
doubtedly  contains  large  elements  of  truth,  is  gaining 
an  ever-wider  acceptance ;  and  the  science  of  historical 
criticism,  that  is^a  science  in  spjte  of  the  arrogant  and, 
ignorant  skepticism  with  which  it  is  often  propounded., 
is  likewise  commanding  the  attention  and  respect  of 
scholars  everywhere.  These  facts  render  it  imperative 
that  those  who  would  speak  to  their  fellow  men  in  in- 
telligible and  understandable  terms  must  discard  much 
of  the  terminology  with  which  they  have  long  been, 
familiar  and  clothe  their  message,  if  not  in  a  new,  at 
least  in  an  altered  dress,  While  we  cannot  too  ear- 


New  Demands  upon  Methodist  Authorship,    in 

nestly  insist  upon  the  propriety  of  teaching  the  gospel 
in  terms  of  the  gospel,  we  shall  be  wise  if  we  likewise 
remember  that  we  must  teach  it  in  terms  that  come 
home  to  the  business  and  the  bosoms  of  the  struggling, 
suffering,  and  sinning  men  and  women  who  are  throng- 
ing about  us  on  every  hand  and  crying  out,  though  not 
always  in  articulate  tones,  for  guidance  and  help.  Let 
there  be  no  craven  fear  that  in  following  this  course  we 
shall  get  away  from  the  New  Testament  or  forfeit  any- 
thing of  that  gjeat  inheritance  which  has  been  brought 
down  to  us  from  distant  years. 

I  confess  a  deep  personal  regret  that,  owing  partly 
to  the  circumstances  which  I  have  above  mentioned 
and  partly  to  a  right  and  jealous  regard  for  the  honor 
of  long-established  and  well-accredited  truths,  our 
Methodist  ministers  have  not  had  a  full  share  in  the 
critical  and  theological  discussions  of  recent  times ;  and 
I  sincerely  trust  that  in  the  future  we  shall  show  our- 
selves as  worthy  and  as  competent  to  be  heard  in  these 
fields  as  we  have  been  in  other  spheres  of  life  and 
thought.  As  a  matter  of  course,  we  dare  not  forget 
that  evangelism,  the  direct  offer  of  salvation  to  the 
world,  is  our  chief  business.  Bishop  Galloway  cor- 
rectly put  the  case  in  the  sermon  that  opened  the  pro- 
ceedings of  this  body :  "Ou£  gospel  is  a  proclamation 
and  not  a  discussion,  a  verity  and  not  a  speculation." 
That  high  and  pregnant  sentiment  doubtless  finds  an 
echo  in  all  our  hearts.  But  the  fact  remains  that  the 
intellect  h^s  its  rights  in^  religion,  and  that  a  living 
faith  will  always  be  courageous  enough  to  confront 
without  flinching  ever}'  issue  that  may  be  raised  and 
to  probe  to  the  core  and  center  every  distressing  and 


H2  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

paralyzing  doubt  that  may  be  thrust  upon  its  notice. 
_If  our  brightest  young  men  show  an  inclination  _to_ 
explore  untried  territory,  let  us  not  warn  them  off 
with  an  ominous  shake  of  the  head  and  an  intimation 
that  they  are  treading  on  dangerous  ground ;  but  rather 
let  jus  bid  them  Godspeed  in  their  glorious  adventure. 
There  doubtless  is  occasion  for  speaking  now  and  then 
a  word  of  caution  and  moderation  to  them.  Some  of 
them  may  be  puffed  up  with  fleshly  wisdom,  and  some 
may  even  go  so  fast  and  so  far  as  to  cast  away  the 
confidence  that  they  have  in  Christ  Jesus.  But  if  they 
have  the  root  of  the  matter  in  them,  if  by  blessed  ex- 
perience they  know  God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he 
has  sent,  if  they  are  steadied  and  strengthened  by  the 
assurance  in  themselves  that  they  have  passed  from 
death  unto  life,  then  they  are  comparatively  safe. 
After  perhaps  a  little  wavering  they  will  plant  their 
feet  upon  the  solid  rock  and  abide  steadfast  when  the 
rains  descend  and  the  floods  come  and  the  winds  blow 
upon  them.  In  any  event,  while  wrong  thinking  is 
perilous,  not  to  think  at  all  is  absolutely  fatal.  I  have 
taken  it  for  granted  that  all  mental  activity  of  a  reli- 
gious sort  will  express  itself,  in  a  larger  or  smaller 
degree,  in  a  written  literature.  If  any  one  chooses  to 
call  in  question  this  assumption,  he  is  welcome  to  his 
opinion. 

I  have  not  now  either  the  time  or  the  inclination  to 
contradict  him.  Were  more  space  at  my  command,  I 
should  be  glad  to  add  something  as  to  the  ability  and 
duty  of  Methodism  to  show  its  gifts  in  those  forms  of 
literature  which  are  not  distinctly  religious  in  charac- 
ter, but  which,  nevertheless,  contribute  to  the  edifica- 


Kew  Demands  upon  Methodist  Authorship.    113 

tion  and  enrichment  of  the  world's  life.  There  is 
scarcely  a  branch  of  our  widespread  denomination  that 
does  not  contain  men  capable  of  using  their  pens  with 
fine  effect  in  many  directions.  It  is,  for  example,  a 
cause  for  congratulation  that  a  Methodist  minister  in 
one  of  the  far-off  colonies  of  Australia — I  refer,  of 
course,  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Fitchett — should  have  brought 
forth  so  vivid  a  narrative  of  the  way  in  which  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century  England  saved  Europe.  Is 
it  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  spirit  of  minstrelsy 
is  dead  in  us,  and  that  we  shall  never  have  a  great  poet  ? 
And  may  we  not  expect  that  in  due  course  of  time 
some  one  shall  come  to  glorify  the  romance  of  the 
itinerancy  in  a  story  that  will  make  its  appeal  to  the 
heart  of  mankind  by  its  high  and  enduring  worth? 
There  is  much  in  the  history  of  Methodism  for  the 
past  hundred  years  that  lends  itself  most  admirably 
to  artistic  treatment  and  narration.  Shall  we  not  look 
also  for  reviewers  and  essayists  to  arise?  Are  we 
doomed  to  everlasting  barrenness  in  this  respect  ?  God 
forbid !  In  the  meantime  let  our  Publishing  Houses 
keep  a  lookout  for  every  sign  of  literary  activity  and 
give  it  their  hearty  encouragement. 
8 


VI. 

AT  THE  GATHERING  OF  THE  TRIBES. 


"All  the  saints  salute  you."     (2  Cor.  xiii.  13.)' 


AT  THE  GATHERING  OF  THE  TRIBES. 

[Address  of  welcome  at  the  Fourth  Ecumenical  Conference, 
Toronto,  Canada,  October,  1911.] 

My  Methodist  Brethren  from  Beyond  All  Seas:  The 
greetings  that  you  have  already  received  have  been 
both  so  numerous  and  so  cordial  that  it  would  surely 
be  a  great  work  of  supererogation  for  me  to  add  many 
words.  But  as  the  special  representative  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  South,  with  its  nearly  two 
million  members,  I  must  stand  up  and  salute  you. 

There  is  at  least  one  good  reason  why  I  should  have 
been  chosen  to  discharge  this  pleasant  duty,  for  I  am 
a  man  with  lines  of  racial  and  ecclesiastical  heredity 
reaching  outward  and  backward  into  many  lands.  Of 
my  four  great-grandfathers,  one  was  an  unmixed  Ger- 
man with  the  touch  of  Martin  Luther  on  him,  one  was 
an  unmixed  Frenchman  well  drilled  in  the  decrees  of 
the  Council  of  Trent  and  obedient  to  them,  one  was 
an  unmixed  Englishman  and  a  most  stubborn  Baptist, 
and  one  was  of  mixed  breed  with  the  blood  of  Hu- 
guenot refugees  and  English  churchmen  flowing  in 
equal  currents  through  his  veins.  As  for  myself,  I  am 
a  perfectly  homogeneous  product  of  all  these  mingled 
elements,  an  American  from  the  top  of  my  head  to  the 
soles  of  my  feet,  and  a  Methodist  twenty-four  hours 
out  of  every  day  from  my  heart's  core  to  my  finger 
tips.  As  such  I  greet  you  to-day. 

You  are  welcome,  brethren  beloved,  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.  We  are  devoutly  thankful  for  the  good 

(117) 


n8  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

Providence  that  has  been  over  you  since  you  left  your 
distant  homes,  and  that  has  brought  you  safe  over  so 
many  weary  leagues  of  land  and  water  to  our  great 
decennial  gathering;  and  we  earnestly  pray  that  the 
same  kindly  Providence  may  be  over  the  households 
and  the  Churches  that  you  have  left  behind  you. 

It  is  our  ardent  hope  that  while  we  are  here  we  may 
all  "sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus" 
and  get  a  fresh  sense  of  what  is  meant  by  "the  com- 
munion of  saints."  And  why  should  there  not  come  to 
us  again  and  again  during  these  days  of  Conference  that 
blessed  experience  which  came  to  John  Wesley  in 
Aldersgate  Street  on  the  evening  of  May  24,  1738,  en- 
abling him  to  say :  "I  felt  my  heart  strangely  warmed ; 
I  felt  I  did  trust  Christ,  Christ  alone,  for  my  salva- 
tion; and  an  assurance  was  given  to  me  that  he  had 
taken  away  my  sins,  even  mine,  and  had  saved  me 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death"?  For,  O  brethren, 
while  we  need  intellectual  enlargement  and  social  stim- 
ulus and  many  other  blessings,  we  need  most  oj  all^ 
the  direct  touch  of^God  upon  us^jthe  vision  of  his  up- 
lifted face,  and  the  sound  of  his  sweet  forgiving 
voice.  If  this  experience  should  ever  become  wanting 
or.  scarce  among  us,  then  we  should  have  no  further 
justification  for  our  existence  as  an  organized  body  of 
Christians. 

Our  sole  stock  in  trade  is  our  religion.  When  that 
goes,  we  shall  be  the  most  poverty-stricken  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth;  for  we  shall  have  nothing  left 
to  fall  back  upon — no  long-stretching  centuries  of 
history,  no  ivy-clad  cathedrals,  no  monumental  vol- 
umes of  theology,  no  elaborate  ritual  of  worship. 


At  the  Gathering  of  the  Tribes.  119 

God  himself,  consciously  known,  worshiped,  adored, 
and  loved  through  Jesus  Christ,  is  our  only  and  our 
everlasting  portion. 

If  after  the  Conference  is  over  you  should  wish  to 
travel,  the  continent  is  open  before  you,  free,  thank 
God,  every  foot  of  it.  Nor  is  there  a  region  on  all  its 
ample  face,  from  the  outermost  rim  of  settlement  in 
the  Far  North  to  the  remotest  villages  along  the  South- 
ern coast,  and  from  the  Atlantic  shores  to  the  Pacific, 
where  you  will  not  find  a  company  of  the  spiritual  chil- 
dren of  John  Wesley  ready  to  give  you  a  warm  and 
generous  reception.  Individually,  we  may  not  be  as 
good  as  we  ought  to  be — I  have  a  grave  fear  that  we 
are  not — but  there  are  lots  of  us  and  more  a-coming. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  you  will  feel  at  home — those 
of  you  who  are  English,  at  any  rate — in  Canada,  this 
beautiful  land  of  the  snows  and  the  aurora  borealis,  for 
here  there  is  blent  and  fused  with  the  sturdiest  Amer- 
icanism an  undying  love  for  the  crown  and  kingdom 
of  old  England.  And  of  course  you  will  feel  at  home 
in  the  United  States  also ;  for  it  has  been  a  full  hundred 
years,  lacking  only  three,  since  Andrew  Jackson  and 
his  Tennessee  volunteers  went  to  New  Orleans  and  gut 
an  empjiatic  perio_d  to  our  last  unbrotherly  war.  God 
grant  that  in  all  the  ages  to  come  there  may  never  be 
another  muster  of  opposing  armies  between  these  two 
branches  of  our  mighty  English-speaking  race !  Amen 
and  amen ! 

We  are  your  brothers.  Our  fathers  marched  to- 
gether with  yours  out  of  the  forests  of  Northern  Ger- 
many and  threw  aside  their  heathen  gods  to  accept  the 
white  Christ.  There  is  nothing  great  in  your  history 


I2O  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

that  does  not  equally  belong  to  us.  Your  ancient  her- 
editaments of  language,  literature,  liberty,  law,  and 
faith  we  share  in  common  with  you.  In  the  course  of 
three  hundred  years  we  have  picked  up  some  new 
things  on  our  own  account.  Look  around  you ;  and  if 
you  see  anything  that  you  want,  take  it  and  welcome. 
Between  us — and  not  to  be  told  in  Gath  nor  published 
in  the  streets  of  Askelon — we  have  some  things  that  I 
wish  you  would  take  and  keep  or,  better  still,  drop  into 
the  sea  as  you  go  home. 

You  need  have  no  fear  that  we  shall  seek  to  annex 
you.  All  that  we  desire  is  to  enmesh  you  in  that  mys- 
tic web  of  Christian  love  which  stretches,  stronger 
than  steel  cables,  through  all  lands  and  all  centuries 
and  holds  together  in  a  glorious  unity  the  hearts  of 
those  who  can  truly  say  that  Jesus  is  Lord. 

Once  more,  and  with  added  emphasis,  welcome,  wel- 
come, welcome. 


VII. 

SOME  CONDITIONS  OF  ORGANIC  UNION. 


"So  we,  being  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and  every  one 
members  one  of  another."     (Rom.  xii.  4.) 


SOME  CONDITIONS  OF  ORGANIC  UNION. 

[Remarks  following  Bishop  Cranston's  paper  before  the 
session  of  the  Methodist  Joint  Commission  on  Federation  and 
Union,  Baltimore,  Md.,  November,  1911.] 

Mr.  President:  I  am  very  sorry  that  the  Commis- 
sioners from  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
are  not  in  position  at  the  present  time  to  make  a  writ- 
ten statement  of  their  views  in  regard  to  the  matters 
that  are  brought  up  for  consideration  in  the  paper  just 
read  by  Bishop  Cranston  for  the  Commissioners  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  But  neither  Bishop  Wil- 
son nor  Bishop  Denny  could  be  with  us  at  our  meeting 
last  night,  and  we  were  unwilling  to  take  formal  and 
definite  action  without  their  presence  and  help.  Nev- 
ertheless, speaking  for  myself  and  representing  what  I 
believe  to  be  the  spirit  of  my  Church,  I  am  prepared 
to  utter  my  mind  with  all  freedom  and,  as  I  hope, 
without  any  trace  of  unchristian  prejudice.  It  is  my 
rooted  conviction  that  the  very  first  step  toward  secur- 
ing a  brotherly  adjustment  among  the  different  bodies 
of  American  Methodists  is  to  be  found  in  a  frank  and 
full  exhibition  of  the  real  difficulties  that  lie  in  the 
way  of  such  a  result.  It  ought  to  be  possible  for  us 
to  open  our  minds  to  one  another.  If  we  are  too  sensi- 
tive to  listen  to  plain  speech,  then  we  are  in  no  mood 
for  fraternal  negotiations;  and  the  sooner  we  adjourn 
and  go  home,  the  better  it  will  be.  Were  it  possible 
for  me  to  practice  any  evasion  or  reserve  on  so  im- 
portant an  occasion  as  this  is,  then  I  should  count 

(123) 


124  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

myself  utterly  unworthy  of  the  great  honor  that  my 
Church  has  bestowed  upon  me  in  sending  me  hither. 

Let  me  say,  then,  with  all  the  courtesy  that  I  can 
command,  and  yet  with  the  utmost  possible  explicit- 
ness,  that  we  are  not  in  the  least  embarrassed  or  con- 
fused by  your  proposition  for  union.  There  was  never 
a  time  in  our  history  when  we  were  unwilling  to  give 
due  and  proper  consideration  to  any  advances  from  our 
sister  Churches.  In  the  very  beginning  of  our  separate 
history,  and  without  waiting  for  the  settlement  of  all 
outstanding  differences,  we  sought  honorable  fraternity. 
Our  offer,  rejected  in  1848,  was  never  withdrawn,  but 
remained  open  till  1874,  when,  to  our  very  great  joy, 
it  was  frankly  accepted  on  the  very  terms  that  were 
originally  attached  to  it. 

Twenty  years  later,  thinking  that  the  time  had  fully 
come  for  a  still  closer  rapprochement,  we  originated 
the  scheme  for  federation,  out  of  which  much  has  al- 
ready come,  and  to  which  we  confidently  look  for  still 
greater  things.  It  will  be  a  deep  satisfaction  to  me  till 
my  dying  day  that  in  the  providence  of  God  I  was 
a  member  of  the  special  committee  of  the  General 
Conference  of  1894  which  was  appointed  to  deal  with 
the  whole  matter,  and  that  I  wrote  every  word  of  the 
report  which  was  adopted  without  the  slightest  modi- 
fication by  that  body,  and  then  passed  on  to  the  General 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 

There  is  still  another  fact  of  history  not  so  well 
known  that  also  ought  to  be  mentioned  here.  The 
convention  of  1845,  which  completed  the  organization 
of  our  branch  of  the  Church,  passed  a  resolution  to 
the  effect — I  regret  not  having  the  exact  words  at 


Some  Conditions  of  Organic  Union.          125 

my  command — that  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  would  always  be  ready  under  proper  conditions 
to  treat  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  on  the 
subject  of  reunion.  It  was  not  in  the  minds  of  the 
great  men  who  composed  that  assembly  to  shut  them- 
selves up  blindly  against  the  developments  of  the  fu- 
ture. They  did  not  know  what  the  future  might  bring 
forth,  and  they  solemnly  put  themselves  on  record  as 
being  prepared  to  meet  any  fresh  emergency  in  a  ra- 
tional and  Christian  way. 

In  line  with  their  promise,  and  by  the  express  direc- 
tion of  our  General  Conference  that  met  in  Asheville, 
N.  C.,  during  May  of  the  current  year,  we  are  here 
present  before  God  to  hear  and  to  weigh  whatever 
offer  you  may  have  to  make.  It  is,  indeed,  a  source 
of  gratification  to  us  to  confer  with  men  who  manifest 
so  much  of  the  mind  of  Christ  as  you  have  done  since 
we  came  together. 

While  I  am  on  this  point,  and  to  keep  the  history 
straight,  I  may  as  well  add  that  the  assertion  so  often 
printed  and  lately  repeated  by  one  of  the  leading  jour- 
nals and  also  by  one  of  the  bishops  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  that  in  the  past  we  have  time  and 
again  declined  overtures  for  union,  is  absolutely  with- 
out foundation  in  fact.  Xo  such  overture  has  ever  at 
any  time  been  presented  to  us  by  anybody  that  had  the 
slightest  authority  to  do  it.  I  am  not  at  all  unmindful 
that  in  the  run  of  the  years  several  fraternal  messengers 
have  rather  gratuitously  advised  us  to  "come  back  to 
our  mother" ;  but  that  is  quite  another  story,  and  no- 
wise contradicts  the  truth  of  what  I  have  just  said. 
Even  now,  my  beloved  brethren,  it  is  not  a  direct  but 


126  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

only  a  constructive  invitation  that  reaches  us.  Yet  not 
wishing  to  give  any  occasion  to  the  enemy  to  blaspheme, 
we  have  responded  to  it  without  hesitation. 

My  own  heart  is  most  profoundly  concerned  for  the 
real  unity  of  American  Methodism.  Confronted  as  we 
are  by  a  thousand  open  or  secret  foes  of  the  faith,  it 
is  a  thing  of  supreme  concern  that  we  should  array 
ourselves  in  solid  columns  and  with  unbroken  front. 
If  we  are  Christians,  we  must  come  to  a  perfect  under- 
standing and  a  harmonious  cooperation.  Less  than 
this  is  less  than  our  Lord  has  a  right  to  expect  of  us. 
Individually,  I  do  not  shy  even  at  "organic  union." 
The  phrase,  like  most  other  forms  of  speech,  is  an 
elastic  one,  and  may  mean  one  thing  or  may  mean  an- 
other. Of  course  I  shall  claim  the  right  to  put  my  own 
interpretation  on  it.  What  that  interpretation  is  will 
come  out  later.  You  need  have  no  fear  that  I  shall 
palter  with  words  in  a  double  sense. 

But  if  there  is  to  be  any  closer  union  than  now  ob- 
tains, several  things  are  necessary. 

I.  All  the  existing  compacts,  including  those  that 
were  framed  by  the  Cape  May  Commission  and  those 
that  have  since  been  framed  by  the  Joint  Commission 
on  Federation  must  first  be  honored,  not  in  the  breach, 
but  in  the  observance  of  them.  It  is  not  worth  while  to 
enter  into  any  new  covenants  till  we  are  ready  both  in 
the  letter  and  in  the  spirit  to  observe  the  old  ones.  The 
Church  that  is  faithless  in  one  engagement  will,  if  in- 
terest or  convenience  require  it,  be  faithless  to  another, 
and  does  not  deserve  to  be  trusted.  If  it  be  said  in  an- 
swer to  this  dictum  that  General  Conferences  cannot 
always  control  the  actions  of  their  agents  or  enforce 


Some  Conditions  of  Organic  Union.          127 

the  terms  of  their  own  voluntary  contracts,  then  it  only 
remains  to  further  affirm  that  General  Conferences 
which  are  so  impotent  are  practicing  a  fraud  when  they 
make  such  compacts.  This  language  is  perfectly  gen- 
eral in  its  scope,  and  hits  only  those,  but  all  those,  who 
are  in  the  way  of  it.  Here  I  stand  stubbornly,  and 
from  this  position  I  will  not  budge  an  inch. 

2.  Negotiations  must  not  proceed  upon  the  supposi- 
tion, express  or  implied,  that  denominationalism  as 
such  is  schismatic  or  sinful.  Schism,  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament meaning  of  the  word,  is  not  separation  from 
a  Church,  but  a  chronic  and  malignant  quarrel  inside 
of  it.  Some  Protestants,  including  a  few  Methodists, 
have  actually  stolen  the  argument  of  the  Romanists  and 
the  High  Church  Episcopalians  concerning  union,  and 
are  using  it  as  if  it  were  a  new  discovery.  Do  they  not 
see  that  they  are  thereby  canceling  their  own  right  to 
an  ecclesiastical  existence?  If  their  contention  be  true, 
then  it  follows  that  Luther,  Calvin,  Knox,  and  Cran« 
mer  were  all  wrong  and  their  Roman  antagonists  all 
right.  Nay,  the  most  of  the  pleas  that  are  used  to 
bolster  up  the  plan  for  what  is  called  "the  reunion  of 
Christendom"  would,  if  logically  followed  out,  land  us 
inevitably  in  the  conclusion  that  Protestantism  should 
abjure  its  past  record  and  make  a  speedy  peace  with 
Rome.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  New  Testament  to 
justify  any  such  view.  Not  one  of  the  classical  pas- 
sages that  are  quoted  to  sustain  it  has  any  such  force. 
Our  Lord,  for  example,  never  said  that  his  sheep  should 
all  become  of  one  fold.  It  was  worth  the  revision  of 
the  New  Testament  to  get  that  false  translation  out  of 
John  x.  16.  What  the  Lord  did  say  was  this :  "Other 


128  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

sheep  I  have,  which  are  not  of  this  fold:  them  also 
must  I  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  my  voice ;  and  there 
shall  be  [not  one  fold,  but]  one  flock  and  one  shepherd." 
The  unity  of  the  flock  depends  not  on  the  unity  of  the 
fold,  but  on  the  unity  of  the  shepherd.  It  would  be  an 
impossible  thing  to  make  one  fold  large  enough  to  hold 
all  of  Christ's  sheep.  Equally  fallacious  is  the  use  that 
is  sought  to  be  made  of  our  Lord's  high  priestly  prayer 
in  John  xvii.  and  of  the  great  paragraph  on  "the  seven 
unities"  in  Ephesians  iv.  But  I  have  not  time  to  notice 
them  now.  The  conception  of  a  world-wide  Church, 
under  one  authoritative  head,  whether  that  head  be  a 
pope,  a  council,  a  general  assembly,  or  a  general  con- 
ference, is  at  war  with  the  whole  genius  of  Protestant- 
ism. That  conception  was  not  in  the  Primitive  Church 
any  more  than  it  is  in  the. New  Testament.  I  do  not 
believe  that  during  the  first  century  anybody  ever 
dreamed  of  it.  It  came  later,  along  with  a  flood  of 
other  errors  and  heresies.  Human  nature  being  what 
it  is,  such  a  Church  as  this  would  inevitably  grow  proud 
of  its  own  bulk  and  obesity,  and  in  the  course  of  time 
would  become,  first  arrogant,  then  persecuting,  and 
finally  rotten  and  corrupt.  Denominationalism  within 
due  limits,  which  men  are  to  determine  for  themselves 
and  nobody  else  is  to  determine  for  them,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  safeguards  of  Christian  purity.  Not  even  as 
an  ideal  to  be  realized  in  the  remote  future  do  I  look  or 
pray  for  the  abolition  of  it.  Where  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is,  there  is  liberty;  and  where  there  is  liberty, 
there  is  sure  to  be  diversity. 

3.  We  shall  make  no  real  progress  toward  the  goal 
in  view  as  long  as  we  insist  that  the  past  separations 


Some  Conditions  of  Organic  Union.          129 

among  the  Methodists  have  been  wicked  or  evil.  As 
I  look  at  it,  the  providence  of  God  has  been  in  them 
all.  The  separation  of  the  Methodist  Protestants  in 
1824-28  was  accompanied,  it  is  true,  by  a  great  deal  of 
unchristian  acerbity  on  both  sides.  That,  of  course, 
was  wrong.  But  good  came  out  of  it.  We  are  all  in- 
debted, largely  indebted,  to  our  Protestant  brethren; 
and  we  have  all  paid  them  the  homage  of  imitation. 
The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  in  1866  fol- 
lowed their  example  by  giving  laymen  an  equal  repre- 
sentation in  the  General  Conference  and  effective  rep- 
resentation in  the  Annual  Conferences,  and  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  moved  later  on  the  same  tracks. 
Still  more  earnestly  do  I  hold  to  the  opinion  that  the 
separation  of  1844 — "which  was  by  consent  and  mu- 
tual"— was  an  epochal  incident  in  the  history  of  Amer- 
ican Methodism  and  a  real  contribution  to  the  growth 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  these  United  States.  The 
General  Conference  which  met  in  that  year  was  not, 
as  is  commonly  believed,  made  up  of  angry  disputants. 
Having  read  the  records  again  and  again  and  with  the 
greatest  care,  I  declare  that,  in  my  judgment,  a  more 
serious,  conscientious,  and  devout  company  of  men 
never  met  together  on  this  continent.  They  moved 
slowly  and  acted  reluctantly  with  heartaches  and  hot 
tears  on  their  cheeks.  The  anger,  the  irritations,  the 
unchristian  conflicts  came  later  and  might  have  been 
avoided.  But  the  separation  was  designed  to  promote 
peace  and  brotherhood.  Not  even  Charles  Elliot,  the 
author  of  "The  Great  Secession,"  was  ever  able  to  an- 
swer his  own  able  speech  in  favor  of  it.  It  simply 
could  not  be  avoided.  Conditions  had  arisen  which 
9 


130  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

would  have  wrecked  the  Methodism  of  the  North  if  it 
had  remained  in  alliance  with  the  South,  and,  as 
Stephen  Olin  pointed  out  in  burning  words,  would 
have  wrecked  the  Methodism  of  the  South  if  it  had 
remained  in  alliance  with  the  North.  As  things  turned 
out,  the  two  Churches  were  set  in  right  alignments 
with  their  own  sections.  God  was  surely  in  it,  ill  spjte. 
of  tlje.  human  follies  that  accompanied  it. 

4.  I  go  a  step  farther  still  and  make  bold  to  say  that 
any  attempt  at  the  present  time  to  bring  about  a  union 
by  pressure  would  be  foolish  and  futile.  The  advocates 
of  union  must  understand  that  they  have  no  legitimate 
instrument  but  persuasion,  and  that  even  this  they  must 
use  in  a  spirit  of  love.  Let  those  who  fear  God,  and  are 
controlled,  not  by  a  lust  for  ecclesiastical  empire,  but  by 
zeal  for  the  extension  of  his  kingdom,  beware  how  they 
try  to  create  division  in  the  ranks  of  any  Church  that 
is  not  willing  to  merge  itself  in  a  larger  organization. 
Any  such  move  would  provoke  hot  and  righteous  in- 
dignation, and  would  work  an  indefinite  postponement 
of  the  day  of  a  complete  unification.  The  sad  experi- 
ence of  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  ought 
surely  to  teach  us  a  lesson  here.  The  result  of  a  pre- 
mature effort  to  force  an  unwilling  element  in  that 
communion — whether  a  majority  or  simply  a  large 
minority — into  an  alliance  that  it  did  not  relish  has 
ended  in  a  long  series  of  scandals.  The  same  thing  on 
a  much  more  exaggerated  scale  would  occur  if  a  sim- 
ilar attempt  were  made  to  rush  the  consolidation  of  our 
Methodisms.  The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
when  it  moves,  and  whichever  way  it  moves,  will  move 
of  its  own  unforced  accord,  and  not  in  broken  detach^ 


Some  Conditions  of  Organic  Union.          131 

ments,  but  in  a  solid  body,  2,000,000  strong.  The  sug- 
gestion that  it  may  become  necessary  to  reach  the  lay- 
men by  going  over  the  heads  of  the  ministers  is,  if 
serious,  sinister;  and  if  not  serious,  silly.  Our  minis- 
ters and  laymen  have  marched  together  too  long  to 
split  up  into  opposing  camps  now.  That  will  come  to 
pass  on  the  day  after  the  Greek  calends. 

5.  If  a  real,  vital,  and  permanent  union   is  to  be 
effected,  each  separate  Church  must  be  ready  to  make 
some  concessions,  and  this  too  not  on  trifling  points 
but  on  matters  of  real  importance.     There  must  be 
no  blinking  this  fact  and  no  policy  of  shiftiness  or 
maneuvering  for  advantage.    Those  who  are  most  ea- 
ger for  union  ought  to  be  the  first  to  say  how  far  they 
are  willing  to  go  to  obtain  it.    The  mere  intimation 
that  either  one  of  the  Churches  should  absorb  the  other, 
retaining  meanwhile  all  its  own  prized  peculiarities, 
would  be  an  impertinence.    If  organic  union  ever  be- 
comes a  reality,  it  will  consist  not  in  the  mere  enlarge- 
ment of  any  existing  Church,  but  in  the  creation  of  a 
new  Church.    The  Southern  Methodists  do  not  wish 
to  absorb  anybody,  and  they  are  not  going  to  be  ab- 
sorbed.   Many  of  us,  at  any  rate,  before  submitting  to 
that  will  camp  out  under  God's  kindly  stars. 

6.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  largest  Church  going 
into  the  new  organization  would  have  the  greatest 
weight   and  influence.     That  would   be  natural   and 
proper.    But  it  would  also  be  natural  and  proper  for 
the  minority  bodies,  simply  because  they  are  minori- 
ties, to  insist  in  advance  on  the  safeguarding  of  their 
reserved  rights  by  stipulations  of  organic  law.     Ma- 
jorities can  take  care  of  themselves;  it  is  minorities 


132  Methodist  Federation  and  Union. 

that  must  have  protection.  Nor  would  it  be  sufficient 
simply  to  formulate  a  constitution.  The  question  as 
to  who  shall  interpret  the  constitution  is  one  of  equal 
importance.  From  our  standpoint,  an  omnipotent 
General  Conference  that  may  sit  one  day  as  a  legisla- 
ture to  enact  laws  and  the  next  day  as  a  supreme  court 
to  pass  upon  their  constitutionality  is  simply  a  despot- 
ism tempered  by  religion.  The  fact  that  it  is  made  up 
of  good  men  does  not  alter  the  situation.  Good  men 
are  sometimes  rash  and  foolish.  The  liberties  of  a 
Church,  as  truly  as  those  of  a  nation,  are  too  valuable 
to  be  trusted  to  the  precarious  guardianship  of  any 
unrestricted  synod  or  conference.  Somewhere  on  the 
outside  there  must  be  lodged  a  power  of-  arrest. 
Whether  it  should  lie  in  a  suspensive  veto  by  the  ex- 
ecutive with  ultimate  appeal  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
ministry  and  chosen  representatives  of  the  laity,  or 
should  take  on  some  other  form,  is  an  open  question. 
But  that  it  must  exist  in  some  form  is  not  an  open 
question.  On  this  ground  somebody  will  be  compelled 
to  do  a  considerable  amount  of  yielding.  Either  one 
Church  or  the  other  must  modify  its  theory  and  prac- 
tice. 

7.  Let  me  conclude  by  adding  that  the  vast  altera- 
tion which  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  has  made 
in  the  original  conditions  of  membership  are  a  stum- 
blingblock  to  some  of  us.  As  we  read  the  Discipline 
of  that  Church,  it  requires  belief  in  the  Twenty-Five 
Articles  of  Religion  from  all  candidates.  This  is  a 
departure  from  original  Methodism.  The  Twenty-Five 
Articles  are  very  good.  I  do  not  want  to  alter  them, 
lest  we  should  get  something  not  so  good.  But  I  am 


Some  Conditions  of  Organic  Union.          133 

opposed  to  thrusting  them  down  the  throats  of  imma- 
ture believers,  or  of  mature  ones  either  for  that  mat- 
ter. John  Wesley  never  would  have  dreamed  of  doing 
it.  Following  the  noble  catholicity  of  the  English  re- 
formers, he  cut  all  the  creeds  out  of  the  ordination 
ritual  for  ministers — all  of  them.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  he  should  have  exacted  any  of  them  from  laymen. 
Equally  objectionable  to  some  of  us  is  the  demand  that 
is  made  of  candidates  that  they  should  profess  saving 
faith.  Not  that  we  would  belittle  saving  faith,  not  at 
all ;  nor  that  we  would  cease  to  urge  the  pursuit  of  it 
on  all  our  people ;  but  that  we  would  not  insist  on  the 
conscious  attainment  of  it  as  a  sine  qua  non  of  Church 
membership.  Of  old  the  Methodists  took  in  seekers 
after  religion  and  gave  them  the  ordinances.  The  new 
Methodism  that  declines  to  do  so  seems  to  us  to  par- 
take more  of  the  nature  of  a  Puritan  conventicle  than 
of  a  catholic  Church.  Nor  can  it  be  successfully  main- 
tained that  its  membership,  on  the  average,  is  either  any 
more  orthodox  in  its  belief  or  any  more  devout  in  its 
piety  than  that  of  the  Methodisms  that  still  cling  to  the 
usage  of  the  fathers  and  founders. 

8.  That  some  of  you  will  be  found  demanding  sur- 
render from  our  Church  in  some  important  respects, 
I  do  not  doubt.  Be  it  so.  Speak  out  your  minds, 
brethren.  It  will  not  offend  us  in  the  least.  We  de- 
sire you,  in  fact,  to  tell  us  what  in  your  judgment  we 
ought  to  give  up.  We  shall  listen  to  you  respectfully, 
and  either  comply  with  your  wishes  or  else  seek  to 
show  you  why  we  cannot  conscientiously  do  so. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LORD. 

HARK  !  the  trumpet  blast  is  ringing 
Till  it  fills  both  earth  and  sky, 

And  the  sons  of  God  are  gathering 
For  the  battle  that  is  nigh. 

With  their  banners  to  the  breezes, 
And  their  armor  gleaming  bright, 

They  are  marching,  they  are  coming; 
They  are  eager  for  the  fight. 

Who  shall  stay  their  onward  movement? 

Or  shall  bid  them  sound  retreat? 
They  have  set  their  hearts  on  victory; 

They  shall  never  know  defeat. 

Rides  the  Lord  himself  before  them, 
Girt  with  sword  upon  his  thigh; 

At  the  shining  of  his  kingly  face 
All  his  craven  foes  shall  fly. 

Hail  we  then  the  glorious  Leader, 
Cheer  we  all  the  gallant  host; 

With  uplifted  hearts  and  voices 
Let  us  make  triumphant  boast. 

For  the  day  of  days  is  coming, 
And  the  kingdom  is  at  hand; 

And  the  glory  that  the  prophets  spoke 
Breaks  in  billows  o'er  the  land. 

'(134) 


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